


O Come All Ye Faithless

by Englandwouldfall



Series: Frigging Festivities [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas fic, Christmas sucks sometimes, Doctor!Castiel, Domestic, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Angst, Fluff, M/M, a certain lack of festive feelings, ex-addict Sam, hospital au, nurse!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-02-28 16:32:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2739362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Englandwouldfall/pseuds/Englandwouldfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a year after the gay-crisis that wasn’t and Sam isn’t all too happy that Dean and Cas are spending their second Christmas together…at work. Add in a couple of demons past, an unlikely Christmas ‘house elf’ and a cock-blocking phone hack and it’s sure to be another crappy Christmas. </p><p>In which Christmas almost sucks, Sam and Jo need to grow up and Dean is far too tired for this rubbish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, last year I wrote a hospital AU Christmas fic and really enjoyed it... and then accidentally wrote a sequel to it in February and decided to wait until the festive season again. This sequel is the following Christmas from the last fic and definitely didn't need to happen but was really enjoyable to write anyway, so what the hell. I have a soft spot for nurse!Dean apparently. 
> 
> Featuring: more Christmas related misery (than eventually gives way into joy, ofc), four chapters and a side order of family drama
> 
> Warnings - more talk of Sam's previous addiction to cocaine aannddd a character who is still an addict.

_**“– ARE YOU HANGING UP YOUR STOCKING ON THE WALL – ?”**_

_“Sonuvabitch,”_ Dean says, bolting upright in bed and making a grab for his phone. He frigging knew that Jo had looked entirely too self-satisfied yesterday, but he’d written it off as festive cheer or the fact that she was _finally_ defrosting over the whole not-attending-Christmas (again) thing. 

But no, she’s decided to ruin his holiday by waking him up. 

He winds up nearly punching Cas in the face, but just about manages to get to his phone without a minor medical emergency by essentially lying on top of him. Given they’ve been screwing for a year a co-habitating for the past few months, he doubts Cas will mind much beyond being woken up. The later, though, he is sure to mind a lot. 

_**“– IT’S THE TIME THAT EVERY SANTA –”**_

“Make it _stop,”_ Cas growls, grabbing a handful of Dean’s hips without opening his eyes. 

_**“– HAS A BALL –”**_

“I’m gonna kill her,” Dean grimaces, fumbling with his phone and finally switching off the alarm. He drops it onto the bed and buries his head in Cas’ shoulder, because it happens to be a lot closer than his pillow. And it smells more like Cas, which is always a good thing. “Visit me in prison?” 

“What time is it?” 

“Six AM,” Dean mutters, into the hollow of Cas’ neck, “the ass crack of frigging dawn.” 

“Merry Christmas.” 

“I’m dubious,” Dean returns, closing his eyes. 

“Happy anniversary,” Cas adds, fingers skimming over Dean’s stomach. Cas pretty much _never_ initiates anything before he’s been awake for at least hour. Usually he gets as far as locking his arms around Dean’s waist and refusing to let him leave before telling him to shut up and drifting back to sleep. Cas just doesn’t do mornings, but that touch has the promise of something which is _almost_ enough to make Dean forget about the fact that it’s stupid O’clock. Almost. “It’s an hour till our shifts start.” 

“Don’t,” Dean mutters, but Cas’ forehead is pressing against is. All he can see is _blue blue blue._ “Mmm,” 

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, hand cupping his chin and bringing their lips together and, okay, maybe he can forget about the fact that he’s bone tired and really just wants to frigging sleep for a little while. Cas sleeps in boxers, which is entirely too much clothing as far as Dean is concerned, but it means it’s not really gonna take all that much before they’re both naked. Merry Christmas, indeed. 

Cas has rolled on top of him, grinding their hips together, and it’s all want and need and – 

_**“ – SO HERE IT IS MERRY CHRISTMAS –“**_

“That _woman,”_ Dean curses, stretching out of Cas’ hold in an attempt to grab his phone and throw it at something. “It’s not my fault that –” 

_**“– EVERYBODY’S HAVING FUN –”**_

Cas snorts and mutters something entirely too sarcastically about how they had been. 

“–we’re working Christmas. Ish. ” Dean finishes, “Would everyone stop giving me hell?” 

_**“– LOOK TO THE FUTURE NOW –”**_

“Cas, let me turn it off,” 

“Dean –“ 

_**“– IT’S ONLY JUST BEGUN – ”**_

“ – ignore it,” Cas insists, voice all gravel and grit that _does_ things to him, “It’ll stop in a minute.” 

Cas’ lips are hot and insistent on his, slotting their hips together. Dean just barely holds back a moan. He’s not sure whether or not it feels like more or less than a year since they started doing this, but they’ve fallen into this domestic rhythm and it’s hard to imagine not having takeaways and Dr Sexy marathons and arguing at work (which everyone now seems to find a lot more awkward than they used to, even though it is just the same argument it’s always been). He likes his life being filled up with moments of Cas. 

_**“– ARE YOU WAITING FOR THE FAMILY TO ARRIVE – ?”**_

“I goddamn hope not,” Dean mutters, as Cas’ hand dips dangerously lower. He’s pretty sure Cas would be giving him a disapproving look if he wasn’t currently thoroughly engaged nipping and kissing his neck. 

_**“– ARE YOU SURE YOU’VE GOT THE ROOM TO SPARE INSIDE –?”**_

Oh god, awkward. 

Dean’s laughing despite himself. Actually, laughing probably isn’t the right word. He’s shaking with mirth and nearly crying and wondering whether or not Jo really thought about the lyrics before he messed with his phone in such a manner; he’s pretty sure she couldn’t have anticipated that sort of timing, though, and god he can’t stop – 

“Sorry,” Dean manages, grinning, “Sorry, Cas, just gay jokes, man - “ 

Cas is drawing back away from him, but Dean grabs his arm and holds onto him. 

“I’ll just wait for you to finish,” Cas says, pointedly. 

Dean snorts and starts laughing again into Cas’ shoulder. The hard line of Cas’ shoulder melt into his own huff of laughter, and Dean meshes them together again. 

“Happy anniversary,” Dean grins, “hey look, the phone’s shut up,” 

_**“ – LAST CHRISTMAS –”**_

“Oh hell no,” Dean mutters swearing and lunging for his phone, which he’s renaming the instrument of torture and cock blocking. 

“I could use some coffee,” Cas says, standing up. And when did he lose god damn boxers, anyway? Dean groans and watches Cas walk towards the kitchen, sending a couple of rightfully abusive messages to Jo. God damn woman. 

“I’m gonna text Sammy,” Dean says, “Wish him a happy Christmas.” 

“It’s six,” 

“Yeah, well, he always used to get me up this early on Christmas,” 

“He’s not talking to you,” Cas points out, bringing him a cup of a coffee because he’s several hundred kinds of awesome, “I doubt waking him up will help your cause.” 

“Frigging baby,” Dean complains, “Why’s he’s _always_ gotta be mad at me about something?” 

“I have sympathies with him,” Cas says, “we should burn Jo’s Christmas present.” 

“Cas, you either gotta get me naked or put some clothes on,” Dean pouts (but not really because he’s a very manly man who doesn’t pout), “We still have time.” 

“Maybe if you’d chosen a better time to tell him,” Cas says, ignoring Dean’s request, “then he might have listened to the rest of the story.” 

That hadn’t been his best call, he had to admit. 

He’d been full and happy and content and apparently that had somehow compromised his brain function and not made him think through the consequences. But, really, considering they’d just finished polishing off Ellen’s fantastic Thanksgiving dinner, Sam shouldn’t have been bringing up other celebrations. 

“We were talking about me and Jess hosting Christmas,” Sam had said, all long hair and excitement, “We were gonna go spend Christmas Eve with Jess’ parents, then you can all come over. And, see, then Gabe can come and he’ll know Cas and Dean, so he doesn’t have to go all the way back to Maine –” 

Dean, who’d been subjected to the exceedingly long argument Cas had had with his mother about the fact that, no, he wasn’t going to be coming to Christmas this year either, silently wondered how much more Mrs Milton was going to hate him for stealing two of her son’s for Christmas. Not that he could really claim to even like Gabriel all that much. Or Mrs Milton, for the few unpleasant hours they’d met. 

“– and as it’s going to be our first proper family Christmas for years – ” 

Cas’ gaze was boring into the side of his skull. Dean felt his heart sinking ever so slightly because, yeah, this was the bit where they sort of had to crush Sammy’s dreams a little… but they had talked about this a lot and it made sense. It was just a matter of whether or not Sam was gonna be feeling very understanding. 

“– unless, Cas, you weren’t planning on visiting your parents, were you?” 

“No,” Cas said, evenly. Dean kicked him. Cas raised his eyebrows. 

“Well,” Sam said, smiling, “what do you think?” 

Sam cooking Christmas dinner was frigging _incredible_ compared to where they’d been just two years ago. Bobby voiced his agreement and Ellen looked like she might cry. He’d had it up to here with the obligatory Thanksgiving emotional crap, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to be the one to kill the Hallmark moment. 

“Sounds great, Sam,” Dean said, “Except me and Cas are out,” 

Sam’s whole expression had crumpled. 

“If this is about your anniversary –” 

“ – nooo,” Dean interjected, quickly (because really there was only so much Bobby, Ellen and Rufus needed to know about that kind of shit), “We’re working.” 

“Well, I figured you wouldn’t get the whole day off,” Sam said, “So we’ll have Christmas dinner whenever you’re not at work.” 

“Um, we’re working the full day,” 

“I’m sure you can swing it with Missouri,” Jo interjected, “she loves Cas. Just get him to go bat his eyelashes at her, and you’ll have the whole week off.” 

“Yeah, but,” Dean had said, slowly, “We volunteered.” 

The volume of Sam’s reaction actually still made him wince, a month on from the event. 

Cas had sat there in almost complete silence (which hadn’t exactly thrilled Dean to pieces, but then sometimes you just had to stay out of family business; at least, that’s what Dean’s been successfully doing when it comes to Milton family drama for the past year) as the rest of his god damn family laid into him about killing Christmas. 

Well, not so much Bobby… who just groused that Dean was being an idjit but otherwise stayed out of it. And Jess mostly just sent him disapproving looks. But, altogether it hadn’t been a particularly successful conversation and he was still bearing the brunt of it. 

Apparently, he was a selfish dick for once again cancelling Christmas. He was also a jerk for dragging Cas into his pit of misery. He needed to ‘grow the hell up’ and also to ‘get his head out of his ass’. Then Jo topped the whole thing off by throwing the rest of the cranberry sauce at his head because ‘it wasn’t bad enough that you had to ruin Christmas, Dean, you also had to piss all over Thanksgiving.’ 

“I really do hate Christmas,” Dean says, punching out a Christmas text to everyone despite Cas’ warning because he spent an age talking Missouri into letting them have the early full Christmas Day shift, just so he could turn up for the back end of Sam’s dinner to finally get to explain _why_ they’re working on Christmas Day. 

He’d managed to get Ellen and Bobby to listen for long enough for the explanation, but neither Sam nor Jo will stay in the same room as him if he happens to mention ‘Christmas.’ He’s not sure when they descended back into teenager sibling amateur dramatics, but it’s really damn inconvenient. 

Not that he’s had much chance to talk to either of them because he spent most of the time from Thanksgiving to now doing nightshifts, which is why he’s so frigging exhausted. 

“You don’t,” Cas returns. 

“Means our whole relationship is based on a lie,” Dean says, cheerfully, “I hope you’re happy to accept that. I’m driving.” 

Cas looks vaguely displeased but doesn’t make a comment. Yes, Dean has to admit that the Impala isn’t the cheapest car to fuel, and for the better part of the last couple of months baby has been left in the parking lot. But its Christmas, so to hell with it. 

This working on Christmas thing better be worth it. 

* 

Dean might have spent a lot of the car journey detailing the hot anniversary sex that they were going to have later, to Cas’ completely blank expression of disinterest (although, Dean’s like a hundred percent certain that was mostly just an act, because Cas is a dick sometimes) which, when he gets to the locker room feeling slightly hot under the collar, he realises was quite a bad idea. 

He has a full day shift, another apology (and probably an explanation) and a Christmas dinner to get through until he can actually get Cas naked. 

…And Charlie Bradbury is wearing what looks to be a pillow case and a pair of elf ears and this definitely does not bode well for the rest of the day. 

“Merry Christmas, Dean!” Charlie says, holding out a pair of reindeer ears. Dean pointedly doesn’t take them and heads to his locker without comment. “And _Cas,_ ” Charlie says, “you guys, arriving together again? When you gonna make an honest man out of him, Dean, and just move in together?” 

On some level, he’d known confiding in Charlie about how Cas had given up the lease on his flat a couple of months ago was probably some kind of mistake, but Charlie had this habit of getting him to spill his shit and vaguely tell her what was going on. 

It had been getting ridiculous, though. Cas hadn’t gone home for the past fortnight, anyway, and his wardrobe was so full of Cas’ stuff that there wasn’t enough room to hang up all their laundry. He’d been in a bad mood and asked whether Cas even had any clothes at his place anymore, which Cas, being literal, had thought about for a few long minutes before admitting that no, actually, he didn’t. And Dean was still in a bad mood, so he’d demanded why the hell they were pissing away money on extra rent that Cas wasn’t even using, before realising that he might have just asked Cas to move in with him. 

He just hadn’t really gotten round to updating everyone about that yet. It’s complicated. He, apparently, has deep rooted commitment issues that don’t stop him from making said commitments, but just stop him from telling people about them. Cas has been understanding mostly because he doesn’t really know why he should _care_ whether or not Dean’s family know they’re living together or not and because he’s been about as busy as Dean… although his patience has been waning post-Thanksgiving because, yeah, at this point it would be easier just to bite the bullet. 

“Isn’t it your day off?” 

“Yes,” Charlie says, “but Dean, I need your help.” 

“No,” Dean says. 

_**“ – MAKE MY WISH COME TRUE –”**_

Dean swears and begins fumbling with his jacket to find the right pocket. 

“I thought you turned that off,” Cas mutters from the doorway, lab coated up and ready to go Doctor for the next however many hours before they can just go home (or to Sam’s, because home home is a _very very very_ long time away). 

_**“ – ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU, YEAH –“**_

“Well obviously it didn’t work,” Dean says, offering a nod to signal that he’s noted Cas is leaving. Cas has this habit of just disappearing in the middle of conversations and it was giving him a bit of a complex, so now Cas makes a bit of an effort to make sure Dean actually knows the guys about to do a bunk. 

“I can fix that,” Charlie says, elf ears bouncing slightly, “just need one _tiny_ little favour…” 

_**“ – I DON’T WANT A LOT FOR CHRISTMAS – ”**_

“An itsey bitsey thing.” 

_**“– THERE IS JUST ONE THING I NEED –“**_

“Fine,” Dean says, placing the phone into her hand. Charlie flips it over, opens the back and pushes out the battery with a grin. 

“There,” 

“I could have done that,” Dean grouches, “What could you possibly want, here, on Christmas Day?” 

“I was thinking,” Charlie says, “that this is a great opportunity to spread the joy.” 

“What?” 

“I have a list of sixty patients,” Charlie says, “who aren’t expecting any visitors today.” 

“This isn’t a good idea,” Dean says, taking the list for a brief second and recognising a few of the names. 

He does kinda hate this gritty bit of the job, but it’s not like there’s all much you can do it change it. Any way you look at it, hospitals are just full of sick people and there’s nothing romantic about sickness. It’s just decay and bacteria and death. “Look, Charlie, if no one’s coming _no one’s coming._ It sucks, but I don’t see what you’re gonna do about it.” 

Charlie’s only really been nursing for the past ten months, so it hasn’t managed to kill her optimism yet. 

“No, but,” Charlie continues, following him out into the hall, “Some of these guys haven’t even told their family they’re in hospital. So what I was thinking –” 

“– so what’s with the get up, anyway?” 

“I’m a House Elf,” 

Dean snorts. 

“Come on Dean,” Charlie grins, “you know you wanna spread a little Christmas magic, huh? Everyone hates a Scrooge.” 

“What’s the plan?” Dean asks, because he might have a soft spot for Charlie and he definitely has a soft spot for a Charlie who’s dragged herself into the hospital on Christmas day because she wants to help people. Probably, because it fell under the category for what would Hermione do or some other reference that he just isn’t quite nerdy enough for, but only just about. 

“Well,” Charlie says, snapping into action, “I’ve found most of them on Facebook, so it’s mostly a matter of getting in touch with the right person. I hacked into Miss West email,” Dean’s not even gonna question that one, because it’s best not to ask when Charlie starts talking computers, and also that’s the kinda crap that makes Cas prissy and could possibly lose him his job. “She’s the coma patient who was admitted yesterday and I think I’ve worked out who her girlfriend is, so if I can just find her phone number which shouldn’t be _too hard – ”_

“– then you’re gonna ring up and say what?” Dean questions, “Your girlfriend’s in a coma, have a merry Christmas!” 

“Um, yeah,” Charlie says, tugging at her pillow case, “if Cas was in a coma –” 

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, shutting his locker and turning to face her, because anything is better than Charlie lamenting her joy over their passionate gay love story. It’s a good job she missed most of the saga that was them getting together, because Dean’s not sure he could have survived her excitement when they finally worked it out. “But, if people don’t want their family there…” 

“Then they should still get _Christmas presents._ ” 

Charlie gestures to her locker, which Dean is now envisioning to contain another pillow case; this one full of candy canes and chocolate, rather than most of Charlie Bradbury. 

“All right,” Dean says, pulling the list out of her hands with a grimace, “But I’m pretty sure the bottom third of your list are all Jewish or otherwise none-Christmas celebrators.” 

* 

He was supposed to find Cas during his break, but he winds up going with Charlie to see her mom in the long term care unit. It’s a little bit harrowing to be reminded that part of the reason Charlie is here is because she’s a pretty-much-orphan and, as far as Dean knows, she’s been single since that whole Gilda incident, so she probably didn’t have anywhere else to go. 

If he hadn’t been so bogged down working extra shifts he’d have remembered that and invited her to Sam’s Christmas dinner, but instead they’re here. 

They pulled a cracker together and he’s currently arranging a party hat on top of Mrs Bradbury’s head, and it's kinda sad and morbid in the way that Christmas is most of the time (particularly round hospitals). He's seen so many brave faces over the fast few week that it's physically exhausting to keep pretending to believe them, and in the past week alone he's had three separate people confess that they're sure this will be their last Christmas with a certain loved-one. It's selfish of him to bring it back round to himself, but it only reminds him that this is the second Christmas without John Winchester; the second of a whole god damn lifetime of them. 

“Dean,” Cas says from the doorway. He can tell by the tone of his voice that Cas is irritated, which is just great because, on top of the rest of the world being pissed at him, apparently now he’s done something to upset Cas too. And he can probably take a wild stab at what, too. 

“You mind?” Dean asks Charlie, straightening Mrs Bradbury’s hat. 

“Nah,” Charlie says, pulling out her copy of the Hobbit, “I’ve got some reading to catch up on, anyway.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, the second he’s outside the boundaries of the room, but _definitely_ still in earshot, “Why have you directly ignored a patient’s wishes by calling their relatives?” 

“I didn’t call anyone,” Dean counters, “Charlie called the relatives, I just… gave her the numbers.” 

“Andrew Gallagher’s two brothers just arrived,” Cas grits out, “having just abandoned Christmas dinner with their families, due to the fact that they received a phone call that _they believe_ insinuated they do not care about their brother. The reason neither was visiting today was because the brother’s do not get along, as was made clear by the fact that one punched the other in the face and knocked out two of his teeth. He is now in the Emergency Room.” 

“Cas,” Dean complains, “can we have this conversation a little bit further away from the good elf?” 

“Why do you never listen to me?” 

“Because you talk such shit!” Dean snaps, throwing his hands up in the air. “Family should visit their god damn relatives on Christmas Day. If they need a push in the right direction then –” 

“– _you_ refused to see any of your relatives on Christmas Day last year. If _you_ have the right to say that you cannot deal with your family then so does every single patient in this hospital.” 

“Well, I was wrong about that,” Dean says, “should’ve been there.” He drops his voice, “look, Charlie is _right there_ and she’s trying to do something really good here, Cas –” 

“ – Dean, you cannot allow her to continue breaking hospital policy just because it’s Christmas.” 

“She’s trying to… spread a little Christmas cheer, Cas. This is a hospital. The mistletoe in the break room doesn’t really count.” 

“Despite whatever good intentions Charlie Bradbury might or might not have –“ 

“Cas,” Dean sighs, “It’s frigging Christmas, can we not?” 

“I do not nag you about this for my own amusement, Dean, if you took what I say seriously – ” 

_“ – I take it seriously,”_ Dean snaps, “and I seriously disagree with you.” 

“Why are you so determined to lose your job?” Cas’s voice crosses over into a new level of angry, which is one that Dean’s only experienced about twice and doesn’t particularly enjoy. Not least because it brings out the worst in him because, yeah, he’s always been a bit too good at antagonising Cas. 

“Well at least if I lost my job,” Dean half yells, “I wouldn’t have to have the same argument every god damn day.” Cas’ expression crumples. “Shit, Cas…” Dean says, and the apology is right there and he’s honest to god about to say it, but then Cas is turning around and storming off down the corridor and Dean really doesn’t react well when people leave. Abandonment issues. Right. “God damn, fine. See you later. Merry frigging Christmas!” 

He’s not really sure why they argue so much, because he does hate it. Usually what happens in the hospital doesn’t bleed out into the arguments they have round the flat, but at the same time it’s pretty damn difficult to draw a line that clear cut. Sometimes he’s pretty sure they’re just kidding themselves about the fact that they’re not really mad at each other; maybe Cas takes every instance of Dean not listening to what he’s saying as a personal insult and maybe every time Cas stalks off from an argument Dean resents him, a little bit. 

He’s really not sure. 

He forces himself to breathe and runs his fingers over the back of his neck. _This,_ right here, is just because it’s Christmas. Dean tends to be a bit of a dick when his family are mad at him, and Cas really does hate Christmas; it’s a mark of a whole year since they first slept together (it’s weird, but he’ll take it) and it’s just stress and pressure and lack of sleep. 

That, or his whole relationship is damned to hell anyway. 

“Couldn’t help overhear,” Charlie says, from the doorway a few moments later. “Sorry,” 

“Not your fault,” Dean says, “who’s next on the list?” 

“Dean, maybe you should –” 

“No,” Dean interjects, “let’s spread the fucking joy. Who’s next?” 

“At number seventeen,” Charlie says, pulling out her list, “We have a new entry. Just admitted. Uh, addict, in desperate need of treatment she can’t afford. Refusing to give a name or number of any friend or relative, no emergency contact details on her medical history.” 

“Sounds like a lost cause,” Dean says, “Unless she has an emergency number tattooed across her ass, there ain’t really that much we can do.” 

“But,” Charlie says, “She’ll _die._ It’s worth a shot.” 

Probably an exaggeration, but then again not necessarily. The system is all kinds of screwed up and charities tend to be stretched thin at this time of year. 

“All right,” Dean concedes, “Any other clues?” 

“Critical condition, conscious and reportedly unpleasant. History of drug abuse stretching back over a decade. Ruby Cortese.” 

Dean rips the sheet out of her hands without really thinking, staring at the file feeling a dumb sense of shock. 

There’s got to be plenty of Ruby Corteses who happen to be drug addicts and he’s searching for some sign that this is a different Ruby, but it’s all there; Chicago, then California, cocaine. 

“Unless she gets the kind of emergency care she won’t…” Charlie says, trailing off as she sees Dean’s face, “Dean?” 

He hates her. He absolutely _detests her_ more than he’s ever hated anyone. That manipulative, addictive skank who taught Sam that he needed something to fill the void, who filled that void with herself and then cocaine… feeding him the shit until he was drugged up and addicted too, until Ruby was more important because Ruby had the drugs, before they ran out on him and he didn’t hear from his brother for two years. Ruby, who put it in Sam’s head that Dean would still give him money, who pushed him into stealing from him when Dean wouldn’t just hand it over. 

Ruby, that goddamn bitch, who eventually bought Sammy right back to him. _We want to do rehab._ She’d said, speaking for both of them over the phone. He’d wanted to break her fucking neck, but he’d driven for two days straight to pick them and drop them straight off at the clinic. _He won’t stay without me_ Ruby said, into Dean’s ear when Sam wasn’t listening, _it’s a package deal, Dean._

He’d handed over his credit card and his fucking life savings. A week later Ruby had walked out with a bunch of pills… but Sam had stayed. _Sam._

“I know her,” Dean says, heart pounding. He feels slightly dizzy and there’s an awful sense of foreboding that he’d rather not dwell on too much but he’s pretty sure where this gonna end up, and it’s not exactly good news. 

“You know a… okay,” Charlie says, cutting herself off and nodding, “okay.” 

“Where is she?” 

He knows how this is gonna go down, and he hates himself for it already.


	2. Chapter 2

Ruby looks fucking awful. 

She hadn’t looked great the last time he saw her, when he picked her up from some sleazy motel that they’d hadn’t paid the bill for and dropped them off at rehab (with Ruby sat in the back insulting him and Sam utterly silent), but at that point she’d been shamming being ready to change her life with a needle hidden up her sleeve. It’s only been a few years, but she looks like his worst nightmares of Sam: skinny and hollowed out, like someone’s carved out her humanity. Her collar bones are razor sharp, and so is her glare. She reminds him so goddamn much of druggie Sam, and it’s awful. It’s a bit like walking into a knife and then dancing around for a bit with it lodged in his ribcage. 

“Dean Winchester,” Ruby croaks out, and she sounds just as bad as she looks. 

“Wasn’t sure you’d remember who I was, Ruby,” Dean retorts. He’s not planning for one second on being nice to her, whatever else he winds up doing. 

Ruby smiles. 

“So you’re a medical man now?” 

“Nurse,” 

“Right,” Ruby smiles, “Sam always was the brains of the outfit. Where is he, anyway?” 

“Celebrating Christmas with his girlfriend. Where are your parents, Ruby?” 

She winces at the mention of Christmas, but recovers quickly. 

“Sam never told you?” Ruby asks, “Dead, genius. Although I guess you’d know all about that now, wouldn’t you?” 

Right. Sam was in touch with Ruby even after she ditched out in Rehab with a punch of bills, right up to the point where John Winchester’s death shocked Sam into sobriety. 

Probably not since then, but then that’s not the kind of question Dean’s ever asked. They could still be best buddies. It’s unlikely, but not impossible. 

“Siblings?” 

“None,” 

“Friends?” 

Ruby laughs in his face. 

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, furiously flicking through her chart. He may not know the ins and outs of the intricate details, but it’s not good. Her bodies giving out on her, like it was always going to do. It’s critical. If she doesn’t sober up soon she’ll be dead in a few years, probably by an accidental overdose; she’ll have been chasing the high that’s numbed through years or usage, and she’ll wind up dead and in some mortuary and they’ll be no one to tell. “Bit of a long shot.” 

“I’m all alone, Dean,” Ruby taunts, but it’s not as annoying when she’s shaking ever so slightly. She must feel like shit all over, but he refuses to be the slightest bit sympathetic. Bitch broke his brother. 

“Don’t make me do something I regret, Ruby.” 

“Do whatever you want,” Ruby says, closing her eyes, “I’m not asking you for anything.” 

Dean swears at her before dropping the chart, Charlie’s voice ringing through his head. 

_But she’ll die._

“You gonna cooperate?” Dean asks, throat constricting, as he looks up at her. He doesn’t really wanna say it out loud. He wants Ruby to refuse help, disappear somewhere and just… do anything that isn’t be here right now, on Christmas fucking day, shoving Dean straight back into another catch twenty two. He’s damned either way. 

“With what, Deano?” Ruby asks, eyes wide and mocking. 

“You don’t have to be my problem, Corteses, I will walk straight back out that door and erase this from my existence, I swear. You either work with me here or do whatever the hell you want. It’s up to you.” 

Ruby looks back up at him and for a moment he see’s actual fear. 

And he is so fucking done with Christmas. 

* 

Charlie is scrubbed up and covering his shift, whilst Dean paces back and forth in the break room trying not to panic. It’s probably not the best use of his time, but Cas is working and suitably pissed at him and everyone else seems to be busy with Christmas, given the way they’re not picking up their goddamn phones. 

He wants Cas to be here and not mad for long enough that he can step into his personal space and find some comfort in his Cas-ness, but he’s not allowed and the fact that what he really wants is a hug is causing a whole second wave of panic. God, he’s an actual sap.

He dials Bobby’s number again.

“Bobby,” Dean says, the second Bobby delivers his curt hello, “I need you.”

“Gonna need to buy me a drink first,” Bobby bites out, and Dean feels some of the panic sitting in his chest break. On some level, he knows this isn’t the end of the world. He’s had worse arguments with Cas, albeit not on Christmas Day with witnesses, but he’s pretty sure they can’t work that out, even if they can’t get over the fact that Dean’s just thrown a major spanner into the works of their plans. But, Cas he can muddle through without. It’d be shitty and lonely, but he’d manage. Probably. 

Sam, though. He can’t lose Sam all over again. Except, Sam isn’t in any immediate danger. He’s been clean for over a year, and maybe the sight of Ruby is enough to set _Dean_ back to three years ago, but Sam’s strong. It’s gonna be okay. Probably. 

Still, Bobby’s voice is a lot more damn reassuring than he’d willingly admit to anyone. 

“You reckon Sam’s doing good?” Dean asks, throat thick, “not at risk of slipping or anything?” 

“No,” 

“And him and Jess are good, right? No arguments?” 

“None that I’m aware of,” Bobby says, moody and curious. 

“Bobby, I need you at the hospital, okay? I got a situation.” 

“You gonna keep me in suspense?” 

“Ruby,” Dean breathes, pressing his thumb into his forehead, “Ruby.” 

“Balls,” Bobby says, “Dean, _don’t_ do anything stupid.” 

“Too late,” Dean says, leaning his back against his locker for a second. He’s always been pretty damn stupid, particularly in regards to his brother. Bobby gets that, even if Cas – 

Even if Cas won’t. 

“Y’idjit,” Bobby grouses, “Can’t you boys go ten minutes without having a crisis?” 

“It’s for Sammy’s own good,” Dean says. 

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Bobby says, “All right, I’m heading over. Ain’t gonna be easy, Dean, we’re kinda of in the middle of _Christmas_ over here.” 

“See you, Bobby,” Dean says, hanging up and sucking in a deep breath of air. He knows full well that he’s made a decision that he’s definitely gonna regret, but he’s knee deep in memories of high Sam and none of it is particularly improving his Christmas. This hadn’t exactly been making his top ten best Christmases anyway. 

_**“ – SIMPLY HAVING A WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS TIME – ”**_

Dean somewhat aggressively re-removes the battery from his phone and silently decides to make good on Cas’ suggestion of burning Jo’s Christmas present. That is, if Cas even wants anything to do with him after the colossally bad decision he just made. 

Oh God, this is probably the worst Dean has fucked up in the past year, and that’s including the whole almost-gay-crisis forcing Cas out of his apartment in an attempt to hide him from her brother, which means that this is the most relationship-threatening event they’ve had to face. Given they were mid-argument before Dean fucked up, it’s not exactly ideal timing. 

So there’s that. 

* 

Cas finds him sitting on the edge of Mrs Bradbury’s bed, clutching a stack of paperwork that he really wants to block out of his head forever with whiskey and Tequila. He turns it over so Cas can’t read it, because he really doesn’t want to be yelled at any more. He wants to slink back to their flat and drink beer and talk about when they’re actually going to tell people that they sort of moved in together a couple of months ago. And about the other bit, which doesn’t matter anymore because he’s fucked it up. 

“The entirety of your family is in the parking lot,” Cas says, “with what looks to be most of a turkey.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Cas gives him a _don’t blaspheme_ sort of look and sits down next to him, their hands not quite touching. He would very like to rewind to this morning and start this whole day all over, but that isn’t an option. 

He wants to crawl under Cas’ skin and live there; dragging himself closer and filling up the spaces in Cas’ life with all things Dean Winchester. Sometimes, he wishes he didn’t care so much about all the other stuff – with Sam, the residue from Dad, with helping people, Ruby – because then he could burry himself in Castiel and forget about the small, itching nags that pull away at his happiness. 

He could have happiness, maybe, with Cas. If he wasn’t such a colossal fuck up with an inability to prioritise correctly, a martyr complex and zero self-worth. As is, he wakes up most days with a face full of Castiel’s skin and wonders how the hell they’ve managed thus far. 

“What’s going on?” 

Dean doesn’t really want to answer that question, so he instead takes this opportunity to kiss Cas hard on the mouth. Just in case his next move fucks everything up good and proper, which he’s thinking is pretty damn likely all things considered. 

“Cas,” Dean sighs, pained, foreheads still close together, “I’ve gotta do it. I’m really fucking sorry.” 

Cas is staring at him but he isn’t yelling, which is a real bonus at this point in the day. His eyes are that same blue, blue, blue and Dean really hates himself for what’s about to come. Hates himself, period, because everyone says that he’s supposed to put his shit first and the yells at him when he tries and it’s – 

“We can buy a house in like a couple of years or whatever,” Dean says, gripping hold of his lab coat tighter. Cas’ whole expression is pinched in slightly confusion and worry. 

“If you still want to. Doesn’t have to be now, right?” 

_“Dean –”_

“Can we not for like two more minutes? You’re gonna hate me and… and I frigging hate it when you hate me, Cas. Hate it when we argue, period. I don’t even know why we get mad any more.” 

“I’ve never hated you, Dean.” 

“You will in about thirty seconds,” Dean says, closing his eyes and, “I hate her Cas, I swear. I hate her so god damn much. The number of times I’ve wanted to break her frigging neck… God, I don’t have a choice. She said she’d make it work this time and, god, but I always lie to Sam. He’s gonna find about this and she’ll fuck him up. Get in his head like she always does, but she’s the worst Cas and I’m really fucking…” 

God he’s crying. He wants to feel some embarrassment for it – for crying in front of Cas – but he just so done with all of this, that he can’t really find the bit of him which is supposed to care about all of that. He’s so finished with Christmas. 

Christmas is a stethoscope that amplifies every damn wrong thing. They were tried and stressed and money’s kind of a stretched before, so suddenly it’s Christmas and he’s exhausted and there’s a hundred and one more expectations on him and everything’s slightly more expensive because it’s been rebranded in red and green. He’s expected to buy into all this bullocks just because it’s December and, worse, he’s supposed to feel _joyful_ whilst doing it. 

He’s been breaking his back doing extra shifts, working through the night and barely seeing Cas, let alone his family, so they can afford the deposit on that house. They’re working Christmas and he’s been driving round in Cas’ excuse of a car, and pushing himself to the breaking point because the house is kinda perfect, actually, and it’s closer to Sam and he wanted it so bad he could taste it. 

He’s never _wanted_ like this. With Lisa, he was shamming happy families to block out the cluster fuck of issues he’d pushed just beyond his peripheries. He wanted Sam, longed for him healthy and tall and prissy as he is now, but that was selfish need and duty and hurt. 

This is just a future he suddenly wants. He wants Cas and a house and to tangle their lives up together so bad that he can taste it; it tastes like Castiel and coffee in the mornings and, now, it’s gone. 

“I fucking hate her,” Dean says, again. He’s still crying. Jesus. 

“Who Dean?” 

“The skank I just spent all my life savings on,” Dean says, “but hey, think of it as an anniversary present.” 

Dean passes the stack of paperwork over to Cas, gut churning. One referral to a rehabilitation clinic, complete with entry form and a cheque courtesy of Dean Winchester. One hospital bill for the emergency treatment of Ruby Cortese, as paid for by Dean Winchester. 

She said she’d take it seriously this time. She’d promised. He doesn’t believe her, not even for a minute, but she doesn’t have anyone and as is she can still get to Sam, drag him down again. Dean has a fucking credit card and Ruby said she’d do the rehab. 

What was he supposed to do? 

“Although if one year is putting my brother’s junkie ex-girlfriend through rehab again, I dunno what the hell I’m gonna pull out my ass for your birthday.” Cas is silent, so Dean keeps talking. “If I sold my soul we could still make that deposit. I deserve to go to hell, Cas, we had plans and I sold you out for a bitch with a drug addiction.” 

“You’re not going to hell, Dean.” 

“You can’t tell Sammy,” Dean grimaces, “He’ll never stop trying to pay me back. I gotta do this… if Sam see’s Ruby straightened out he’ll stop killing himself over it. And Sam’s my priority I just… I wish she was dead somewhere and this never became my responsibility, you know?” 

“You’re doing a good thing,” 

“You hate it when I do good things,” Dean counters, “I’m gonna hate myself for this.” 

Castiel doesn’t look mad, but he’s retreated into himself slightly. Dean hates that more than outright anger, and not because angry Cas is kinda hot, but because angry Cas pushes himself into Dean’s space and makes his feelings known, whilst this Cas slinks back into himself with drawn smiles and blank stares. 

“I’m being paged,” Cas says, “by Charlie.” 

“Ah, shit,” Dean says, wiping his face and standing up, “Bobby must have messed up sneaking out, which means Sam’s downstairs. Cas, man, I’m sorry about the house. I don’t….” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Cas says, even though It’s everything. It’s their god damn future. “We need to go.” 

They’re not exactly ones for PDA or any of that touchy feely crap, but Cas doesn’t let go of his hand until Dean can see Sam demanding answers from the receptionist. 

* 

Bobby is taking a swig from his hip flask, Ellen is standing at the reception grilling the poor guy who’d probably been having a bad day, anyway, and Jess is holding several plastic tubs of what looks like most of Christmas Dinner. 

Charlie has managed to delay the motley crew that is his family from actually _getting_ to Ruby, but Bobby is tight lipped and being harassed, Jo is accusing Dean of being a drama queen and Sam already has a stupidly anxious expression written all over his features. 

“Dean,” Sam calls out, when Dean is approaching them, “Dean, what?” 

“Sorry,” Bobby mutters, “But you were asking for a frigging miracle.” 

“Is… everyone okay?” Sam asks, wide eyed and reminding Dean a lot of the kid who used to pull at the bottom of his jeans when he wanted attention. 

“Not exactly,” Dean hedges, hand curling into a fist. 

“Sam,” Cas says, his emotionless Doctor façade slipping on like a glove, “Ruby Cortese was admitted into Emergency care this morning…” 

Cas is explaining Ruby’s condition and taking control and fuck if Dean doesn’t love him for it. He’s spend years vaguely irritated at Cas’ cold attitude, but from the other side it’s everything he’s ever needed. 

Bobby nods to the hipflask which Dean responds to with a shake of the head. Maybe Charlie is covering his shift for now, but he might switch back on later. Anyway, he doesn’t need it. Cas is this solid presence, gently steering Sam away from the obvious question of _who the fuck paid for the ambulance and the treatment and the rehab._

Bobby’s noticed, though, he can tell. 

“She hated that place,” Sam is saying, and the puppy dog eyes are fucking killing him because Sam is sad about _Ruby,_ the bitch that ruined both of their lives, and Dean wants to punch him for it. Of course, Sam still cares about her in the way that only Sam could, because Sam blamed himself and not Ruby, which Dean can’t do lest he hate Sam the way he sometimes thinks he should. He wants to grab Cas’ hand and ground himself, but Cas is in Doctor mode and is probably mad at him, too. 

Dean wants to snap that no one likes rehab, particular not the relatives who get the phone calls and the letters and the _I hate yous I need drugs how could you do this to me Dean how could you –_

“What do you want us to do?” Dean snaps, “Ask her to move in with me and Cas?” 

“Dean,” Sam says, blinking at him, “You and Cas…don’t live together.” 

“Uh,” Dean says, “Cas gave up his lease a couple of months ago.” 

“Months?” Jo demands, eyebrows arching upwards towards her hairline. 

“Don’t start, Joanna,” Dean snaps, before Jo can have a go at him about not informing her, “You haven’t let me frigging talk to you since Thanksgiving and I’ve been up to my ass in night shifts and the fuck did you do to my phone?” Jo blinks at him. “I’m doing my goddamn best here, Jesus, and the whole lot of you have been making everything as difficult as possible. I’m not pissing all over your Christmas for my own damn entertainment, so if you would just…” Dean runs out of steam half way through his sentence, his chest aching. 

They’ve been doing all of this for a house that now they can’t even buy and it hurts a lot more than he expected. 

“We’re saving up for a house,” Dean says, finally, eyes flicking to Cas. His expression doesn’t shift, doesn’t even involuntarily tighten. God he loves him. Dean moves unperceptively closer. 

“Is this the time for a damn update, boy?” Bobby grouses, “We got a junkie to visit and half a turkey wrapped up.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, shaking the thoughts out of his head and stepping into motion, “she’s just up here…” 

Dean’s caught between wanting to witness the whole event, every look Sam and Ruby exchange, and wanting nothing to do with it at all. 

Jess settles a little way away from the bed and offer’s Dean a turkey sandwich, which Dean accepts because it’s something to do with his mouth that isn’t swear or cry. She offers him a short congratulations, which he bears with a silent grimace. 

Castiel is right by the bed, talking Sam through the chart. Charlie is right there too, whilst Bobby, Ellen and Jo converse in low whispers in the other corner of the ward. Bobby met Ruby once or twice. Dean remembers that they were almost beginning to trust her before… well. 

“You remember Bobby?” Sam is saying, pulling Bobby away from his huddle and into the crowd around Ruby’s bed, “And this is Ellen and Jo…” Sam says, “… and Jess, my girlfriend.” 

Ruby, bitchy and sarcastic and awful, doesn’t seem to know what to do with them all. 

Dean wants to pull Cas into the on-call room, press the lips together, run his hand over his chest and drown himself in Castiel; he wants to pull him home, away from all this crap, and crawl into bed and never have to leave again. He settles by taking a step forward, till he falls in line with Charlie and Cas. 

“Sooo,” Charlie says, hushed, “that was a pretty intense argument earlier, huh? Bet that wasn’t helped by er…” Charlie gestures towards the medical forms, which is Dean’s cue for shooting her a look which quite clearly says shut up. “I mean, I know you two argue a lot,” Charlie continues, “bet that kinda anger fuels some pretty hard core angry sex.” 

Bobby snorts a noise of discontent and doesn’t say anything, but it’s nice to know that his surrogate father heard his surrogate sister talking about the probability of having ‘hard core’ sex with his boyfriend. 

Although, actually, they haven’t really done the whole angry sex thing for a while. They’ve both been too exhausted working to get properly angry. Instead they’ve just been moodily grouching around each other with good intentions to start the argument after they’ve had a bit more sleep. 

“Sure,” Dean agrees, finger brushing against the pulse point on Cas’ wrist, “Real hard core.” 

Charlie smiles and doesn’t mention the elephant in the room that is his junkie ex-brother and strikes up conversation with Jess, who understandably looks the most awkward out of the company. 

“Sure,” Ruby spits, glaring at Sam and pulling a fistful of bed sheet over her bony frame, “Merry fucking Christmas.” 

Exactly, Dean silently agrees, as he disappears as silently as possible in order to continue having his breakdown in the break room. 

* 

“God damn but that was a shitty Christmas,” Dean says, when they get through the door of their apartment. Cas is pulling off his trench coat and, on some level, Dean’s aware that he should be heading in the direction of coffee… but he’s too damn exhausted. “Next year,” Dean mutters, “I vote we skip Christmas.” 

Cas snorts. 

“We could save money,” Dean says, slumping on top of his covers. He’s just exhausted to the bone and it’s so much effort even to keep talking. “Never hear a frigging Christmas song again, save us the presents that we didn’t manage to give to anyone. Except the whole ex-girlfriend, thing. Happy Christmas, Sammy.” Cas has unbuttoned his shirt and is following him into the bedroom, pulling off his shoes which, yeah, Dean should probably have done. 

“It’s the magic of the Christmas Season,” Cas says, “bringing a family together.” 

Dean half laughs that time. He wants to grab hold of Cas’ wrist and pull him towards him, but that involves moving and moving involves energy he just doesn’t have. He’s pretty exhausted. 

“We good, Cas?” Dean asks. 

“Yes, Dean,” Cas says. 

They obviously need to talk about it all in the morning, but the main thing is that Cas isn’t going to leave him. He’s not stranded here, in his life that he thinks wouldn’t be good enough now he’s experience it differently, because he’s anchored to Cas. 

“Thank fuck,” Dean mutters, “God, Cas, I…” 

“Hmm,” Cas says, and the slightly dip in the bed indicates that Cas has sat down too. 

“We’ll do it in like another ten months,” Dean says, although he’s lying through his teeth. The house isn’t going to be available again and it’ll take them frigging forever to find somewhere that was such a good deal, but it’s fine. He’s pretty used to selling himself out for others, but it’s crappy that Cas is now involved. “I just gotta keep doing night shifts.” 

“No,” Cas says. Dean manages to conjure up enough energy from somewhere to shift onto his side, where he can catch Cas’ expression. He doesn’t look particularly like he’s about to tell Dean that they’re never buying a house, now Dean has exposed his priorities (even though he’s always been pretty clear about that), but then it’s difficult to tell with Cas sometimes. “Dean, you’re exhausted.” 

“Damn right,” Dean agrees, “but, the pay –“ 

“ – I’d rather wait longer and actually see you when you’re conscious,” Cas says, “The last month has been…” 

Frigging awful, actually. 

“We should be sensible about this,” Dean says, but he’s definitely too exhausted to have this conversation. “Uh, Cas, you know that hot anniversary sex we were gonna have?” 

“Yes,” 

“Rain check?” Dean suggests, because, honestly, it’ll be a frigging miracle of he stays awake for the end of this conversation, let alone attempting anything else. “Could call New Year’s our anniversary instead.” 

Cas answers by lying down next to him, fingers reaching out and spreading across Dean’s hip. He’s still fully dressed and he wishes he could be bothered to do something about that, but it’s not gonna happen. He might manage to make the effort to kick off his shoes, but that’s about as far as undressing is gonna go. 

“Goodnight, Dean.” 

When Dean hears his phone start screeching out Silent Night in the sitting room, it’s Cas that gets up to go turn the damn thing off. He falls asleep in the middle of some comment insulting Jo, but when he wakes up someone’s taken care of the business of taking his shoes and socks off for him. 

He shrugs off his jacket, his shirt and his trousers and curls himself around Cas. 

“Yeah okay,” Dean mutters into the back of Cas’ neck, even though the guys definitely asleep and probably will be for a very long time, “No more night shifts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming soon: Boxing Day, conversations and an actual exchange of gifts


	3. Chapter 3

He wakes up with Cas plastered against his chest and a face full of Castiel’s bedhead. 

They don’t generally cuddle that much at night, but as soon as Cas twigs that it’s about time to get up he migrates to Dean’s side of the bed and holds him hostage; Dean’s guessing that the extra heat woke him up and that they’ve already had far too much of a lie in, but then again they probably deserved it. 

“Morning,” Dean mutters, whilst Cas pretends to be asleep. The guy’s an idiot who’s never got the knack of fake-sleep breathing, but then Dean’s never got the hang of pretending not to find it cute. “You know you don’t get coffee till you let me go, right?” 

The heat and weight of Cas is suddenly lifted in an artful fake-sleep-roll. It’s a pitiful attempt, really, but it makes him smile which is pretty frigging miraculous considering the tirade of shit they have to deal with this morning. 

God, but yesterday was an apocalyptically bad Christmas. It might even have been worse than last year, although it’s a close call, because at least year, despite Sam crying at him down the phone, upsetting the rest of his family and wallowing far too much in self-pity, he got laid. There was a slight sexuality crisis attached, maybe, but that’s marginally better than being too emotionally and physically exhausted to bone your hot doctor life partner. 

When he brings two cups of coffee back to the bedroom, Cas has actually half sat up. 

“I’m mad at you,” Cas says, accepting the cup of coffee and pressing his hands against the outside of the mug to warm his fingers. 

“Figures,” Dean returns, crawling back under the covers and pressing his forehead against the sharp line of Cas’ shoulder. “For which bit? The part when I spent my life savings on a drug addict or the part when I ruined everyone’s Christmas?” 

“Dean,” Cas says, “for a few moments yesterday, I honestly believed that you had cheated on me. Finding out that _Ruby_ was the her in question was a relief.” 

Dean backtracks to that conversation… Dean apologising, talking about how much he hates her, crying… yeah, okay. 

“A relief?” Dean questions, “Dude, that’s like the perfect excuse to cut and run from this hot mess.” He can feel Cas’ eyes boring into the corner of his skull, but he stays not looking at him. One of Cas’ hands is tracing reassuring lines across his thigh. “Cas, you should know by now… I’m not gonna cheat on you, but it’s damn near guaranteed that I’ll do something stupid to try and help my brother and…you deserve to be someone’s top priority.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, fingertips dusting the edge of his boxers, voice deep and serious and vibrating right through him in the way that it always does. Dean doesn’t deserve to be happy with Cas because he’d screw him over and ask him to leave a hundred times over if it was the only way to help Sam. It would probably one of the most difficult things he ever had to do and he’d hate himself for it forever, but he _would_ do it. “I know you. I know what I signed up for.” 

“Well maybe you should have read over the contract a couple more times,” 

“You did the right thing.” 

“Then why do I feel so shitty about it?” Dean asks, which is the moment when Cas’ fingers reach the top of Dean’s inner thigh, achingly close. Dean closes his eyes. “What are you mad at me about, then?” Dean asks. 

Cas retracts his hand, which is all kinds of unfair, so Dean turns over and presses his erection against Cas’ thigh, just in case it had escaped Cas’ notice between all the teasing (and because he’s obnoxious and shitty like that). Cas lets out a huff of slight irritation, but set’s down the coffee he was holding in his other hand, and then both hands are back, there, properly this time. 

Dean rolls over into Cas’ space, straddling him, and buries his head in Cas’ other shoulder. 

This is actually a bit of an achievement all things considered, because it means that they’ve actually entered the ballpark of morning sex two mornings in a row. Maybe yesterday was interrupted thanks to Jo’s frigging phone hack and Christmas, but it seems like the morning holds the promise of at least a decent hand job. Then again, Dean’s pretty good at side tracking arguments with sex and Cas isn’t exactly drawing this whole thing out. 

“The argument at the hospital,” Cas says, whilst Dean stifles the series of conversation-inappropriate noises into Cas’ skin. “You continually undermine my authority and…” Cas’ breath hitches slightly. Ha. Cas always acts like Dean doesn’t get under his skin, but Dean knows better. “And my professional opinion, and it is humiliating.” 

Cas’ hands, giver of life and A plus orgasms, slide across Dean’s thighs, pausing on his hips. 

“I didn’t mean that crap,” Dean says, speaking the words into Cas’ torso, chest, “I just… Christmas and the nightshifts and,” he presses his lips above Cas’ heart, which makes Cas squirm instinctively, “you know you’re a bitch to me too, sometimes.” 

Dean decides now is exactly the moment to get rid of Cas’ boxers, which makes Cas frown and squint. He lifts his hips up to allow him, anyway. 

“We’re supposed to be having a conversation,” Cas says, voice slightly hoarse and hands tightening their grip on Dean’s hips. 

“You talk,” Dean says, “I’ll listen.” 

It’s a slightly tactical move, because it’s kind of hard to be _really_ mad at someone when they’re teasing you that much. Anyway, Cas had once managed to trick Dean into forgiveness by giving him a blow job _whilst_ Dean was trying to yell at him about the heating bill, so it’s not like Cas is innocent in that department. Cas is too worked up for the conversation to get anywhere near the region it’s supposed to, so really, Dean is doing him a massive favour. Well, them both a favour. 

And it’s Boxing Day and he likes to think that Boxing Day is their day, in the same way that Christmas day will never really belong to him. 

“I love you,” Cas says, and it’s completely not the line Dean was expecting. Although Cas tends to blind sight him with saying things like that whilst Dean is distracted because Dean has a tendency to freak out. Even though it’s not like that’s the first time Cas has ever said it, and he’s said it himself, and he really _means_ I love you when he brings Cas coffee in the morning and suppresses the urge to yell at him when he’s heartless and cold and makes Dean feel inadequate. “And I don’t care that you put Sam first, but I need you to…” Cas blinks, takes a breath, tries to refocus. 

Dean pauses at that point on Cas’ neck which makes Cas make that noise that Dean’s never been able to describe, but he loves loves loves. He has his lips, tongue, teeth and a great determination to rip that noise out of his throat. 

“… I need,” Cas repeats, pausing. 

“What, Cas?” Dean mutters into the line of flesh between shoulder and neck, dipping down to trace his collar bone with his lips. 

“Dean,” Cas says, insistent, as he pushes Dean shoulder round, back over to his side of the bed, so that Cas is straddling him instead, pressing their groins together, and his eyes blue, blue, blue... 

“Anything,” Dean mutters, and he goes for the neck again. Cas makes that noise, and Dean kisses it off his lips. 

Cas tastes of the fancy ass coffee he insisted Dean swap over to the day he moved in officially, frowning and grumbling about how he’d been subjected to Dean’s subpar brand for nine months, and it’s glorious. 

“A _compromise,”_ Cas says, and then the rest of the conversation and half the morning is lost to the best (and only) god damn morning sex they’ve had in months. 

* 

“A compromise,” Dean repeats, bringing Cas breakfast/ lunch into the bedroom because Cas is still refusing to get up, even though it’s nearly time for Dean to go in to work for his afternoon-evening shift, and the whole room smells like sex and they need to change the sheets. He couldn’t even talk the guy into the shower. Dean’s not particularly surprised, because Castiel has been a stubborn bastard since day one. 

“We can still get the house.” 

“Cas,” Dean says, frowning, “we can’t. This wasn’t like an expensive weekend, this is rehab and hospital bills and an ambulance. I am broke. Fuck, Cas, I’m in _debt.”_

“I’m not.” 

“No,” Dean says, “We said fifty fifty.” 

“Compromise,” Cas says. 

“A compromise means me giving more, Cas, not you. You can’t… I’m not taking your money.” 

“Dean,” Cas says, the threat of anger lining his voice, “We are not roommates. Do you suppose that we build our lives together around separate bank accounts? That there are things that I want that don’t involve you? What do you think I’m doing with my money?” 

“It’s yours,” Dean says, “Take a vacation to Europe or something.” 

“Without you?” 

“I’m sure as hell not getting on a plane to Europe,” 

“Dean,” Cas grates out, clearly frustrated, “I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with you. It is _our_ money.” 

They went over all this about the time that they started being properly serious and Dean realised that his relationship with Castiel was _the_ most functional relationship he’s ever had, and possibly the only one that’s ever made him really happy. Lisa made him fucking miserable (not that that was her fault really, he was the one with the secrets and the emotional repression), his relationship with Cassie had mostly constituted of them yelling at each other (in a slightly different way to his arguments with Cas work because, yeah, it’s not like they have a great track record for domestics) and there’s no one else that really counts. His scattering of high school relationships made him happy in virtue of sex and someone actually paying him attention, but that’s not really on a par with an actual adult relationship. 

Cas just came out of nowhere with his lab coat or his trench coat, his hatred of Christmas and his mutual love of Dr Sexy. The second they actually managed to find time to date properly Dean knew he was kind of fucking screwed but that he didn’t really mind, because he actually trusted the guy not to throw him over. Couple of months in Dean figured they were in this for the long haul. 

“But it’s not, damn it,” Dean counters, “Because you earned it.” 

“Would you have this same problem if you were with a woman who happened to earn more than you?” 

Dean stares at him. He hates it when Cas brings this kind of shit up, because sexuality issues are confusing enough without throwing them into the middle of arguments like that. Plus, it’s usually only brought up when they’re most pissed at each other and aiming to make an impact. It works; of course, they’ve both always been experts on making an impact. 

“Would you still have this problem if I didn’t like women?” Dean snaps back. 

“Yes,” 

“Exactly,” Dean says, hotly, “Lisa earned more than me and I didn’t even let her go fifty fifty, so just…don’t start that crap.” 

“It is not emasculating to allow someone to look after you, Dean.” 

“I don’t need anyone to look after me,” Dean snaps back, “Ask for something else; a different compromise.” 

“That’s not how it works, Dean.” 

“Then no deal.” 

Dean grabs his scrubs, slams the door behind him and changes in the main room instead. He’s mutely aware that they can’t call their morning activities their hot anniversary sex now because it’s all tainted by the stupid argument, and makes a note to point this out to Cas later. They can reschedule when he’s not feeling so vulnerable and transferring it to anger at Cas and his stupid unreasonable demands, because it’s easier to deal with that way. 

Besides, Cas just said it. 

_I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with you._

They have plenty of time to reschedule. 

* 

Dean slams into work in a foul mood, storming across the ICU and nearly walking straight into Charlie. 

“Good to see you, brother,” Benny says in the sarcastic version of his usual southern drawl, giving him ample opportunity to vent his frustrations by flipping him off. Benny smiles at him, because he’s that kind of guy, and it’s irritating enough that Dean makes a mental note to avoid Garth at all costs, because if a Benny-smile makes him want to punch something, he probably won’t be able to deal with Garth without turning homicidal. 

“What’s up, bro?” Charlie asks, which is probably unwise. 

“Cas,” Dean grunts, because it’s a better answer than ‘everything’ which is probably too melodramatic, although also true. Ruby is still weighing on the back of his mind, he can’t get the vision of drugged up Sam to shift out of his head, they’re probably not going to get the house because Dean is _also_ a stubborn bastard, and he’s still got to reschedule the whole of fucking Christmas considering they utterly failed yesterday. _Cas_ is the primary reason he’s pissed off at this exact moment, though. 

Without the irritation to focus on he’d probably be crying in his car somewhere, but that’s another issue entirely. 

“Just need to kiss and make up,” Charlie says, fist pumping his arm and raising her eyebrows. Dean feels suddenly exhausted again, slumping against the side as Jo turns round the corner with a bunch of patient’s notes. “Come on, Dean, sorry is just like one word…” 

“It’s not that,” Dean says, as Jo slides over to join their conversation, “He wants to frigging merge bank accounts and shit.” 

“Is this commitment issues or…?” Charlie begins, cocking an eyebrow at him. Charlie, of all people, knows that Dean is pretty god damn serious about Castiel. Most of his commitment issues have been partially circumvented by the fact that they fit so well; the arguments really help ease his mind, as much as that sounds contradictory, because it’s a quasi-reminder that they’re doing this because they enjoy each other’s company and because they’re genuinely invested in each other’s shit, not just because it’s easier than shaking up the routine. Charlie gets the odd blast of Dean freaking out, but generally it’s about the outer stuff rather than the inner stuff, and she only has half a back story, so it figures that she finds the idea that it’s a commitment issue off base. 

“Dean looks after people,” Jo puts in, “Bought his brother up, looked after his Dad, looked after everyone. So what, you’re freaking out because Cas brings in more zeroes?” 

It sounds so _petty_ like that. 

He’s looked after himself his whole life. He hasn’t depended upon another individual financially since he was about fifteen (other than the small amount of money Bobby leant him whilst he was studying for the nurse thing, and that was repaid in full within three months of him qualifying), and the idea of suddenly _surrendering_ that independence and just, like, letting Cas buy the majority of their house is just… it’s not equal. He’s not doing his fair share. It makes him feel… inadequate and off kilter. 

“Dean,” Jo sighs, “I get it, but it’s damned stupid.” 

This gives way to a thirty minute lecture drawn out over the course of the day between Jo’s surgical consults and Charlie swapping wards. He spends half the day trying to hide from the lot of them and winds up crawling into Tessa’s room for his break. 

“Boy trouble?” Tessa quips, hair back and looking healthy (not for long, though, she’s in for tests and it’s not looking good). 

“Woman trouble,” Dean counters, sitting down in a huff and rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. 

He really thought he was done with woman trouble for a lifetime, but whatever. 

* 

When Dean gets back from work he feels calmer. He doesn’t feel like he’s liable to lash out at Cas like he always does, but the point is rendered somewhat irrelevant when he steps into the flat and hears the television blaring in the bedroom. 

Cas’ television was the only thing left to move over when Cas gave up his lease and Dean half objected to the thing being in their bedroom like some old married couple who didn’t have anything better to do in bed but watch TV, but Cas has this thing where, given the choice, he’d literally never get up at all. As a result, Cas spends his rare days off hauled up in his bed in his boxers watching crap daytime television, all of which he finds completely baffling. He’d probably find it less confusing if he didn’t usually fall asleep in the last five minutes of a show, waking up sporadically and catching odd thirty second intervals of different shows stringed together in a weird, sleepy montage of crap TV. 

Dean’s not exactly surprised that Cas is asleep when he walks into the bedroom. 

By the look of it, the guy hasn’t even bothered to get up and make himself dinner. Dean rolls his eyes and switches the TV over to Casa Erotica, because Cas hates it and it’s Dean’s way of punishing him for running up the electricity bill (even though, as Cas says, that doesn’t make any sense, Dean, with his face all smitey). He turns the volume up before strolling back into the kitchen, grabbing a packet of pasta from one of the cupboards and deciding it will probably do for dinner. 

As predicted, Cas storms into the kitchen less than ten minutes later, his face pinched into irritation. His hair looks frigging ridiculous and, probably in an attempt to express the fact that he’s pissed at Dean, he’s put a shirt and sweats on. Except it’s Dean’s shirt and it’s all buttoned up wrong. Dean’s grinning, because he loves ribbing Cas more than talking to pretty much every other person, and Cas is so frigging adorable it’s hard not to. 

“Dean,” Cas says, all deep and angry. 

“Hey,” Dean returns, stepping forward into Cas’ space, cupping his hip and backing him into the kitchen counter. Cas catches on pretty quick, and then he has one of Cas’ hands pulling at the back of his neck, insistently bringing their lips together in a hot crush of irritation. Dean’s aware that there were like a hundred other things that they were supposed to sort out today, but it’s easier to hitch Cas up and onto the kitchen counter, and search out the planes of Cas’ skin under Dean’s shirt. “I’ll try,” Dean mutters into Cas’ neck. “I can try.” 

He’d been planning to reason Cas out of pushing for it, because he’s not sure if he can do it, but it’s hard to remember why it’s important when Cas is prissy and failing at wearing Dean’s shirt. 

“Dean,” Cas says, pulling away ever so slightly, he’s half expecting some relationship-affirming, heartfelt comment but… “The pasta is boiling over.” 

“Sonuvabitch,” Dean mutters, forcing himself away from Cas to sort out the pasta, “Could have turned the porn off,” Dean says whilst trying to find something for a pasta sauce (and apparently they really need to go grocery shopping, because there’s pretty much just bacon and beer in the fridge), “Just saying.” 

“You could have let me sleep,” Cas counters. 

“Dude, you haven’t even eaten,” Dean says, “That’s like the blasphemy.” 

“No, it’s not,” 

“Jesus, don’t be so literal,” 

“That was blasphemy,” Cas returns. Dean rolls his eyes. “We don’t have to talk about anything today, Dean.” 

“Kinda already started,” Dean says, facing the stove rather than Cas. “What’s with the Amber light?” 

“Ruby,” Cas says, “She took your brother away from you.” 

“Yeah,” Dean says, “Got him back now.” 

Cas sends him a look that clearly says that he knows that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt, and that he’s not going to push this conversation for a little while longer, and Dean is so fucking grateful that he feels like his chest might crack. Cas is good and he’s so much better at this than Dean is. When Dean is pissed he pushes and pushes, and he irritates Cas on purpose, and he’s says dumb things and doesn’t think about Cas’ feelings… but Cas, Cas is a frigging _saint._

“Too good for me, Cas,” 

Cas hums in response. 

“When will food be ready?” 

“Sit in bed all day and now you’re hungry,” Dean says, “Five minutes. Uh, we need reschedule Christmas,” Dean says, “Given we failed at pretty much everything yesterday.” 

“Call your brother,” 

“You call your brother,” Dean retorts, handing Cas the spoon and making a nod towards the pasta, stepping back towards the couch to grab his phone. “Hey Sammy,” Dean says, except the words dislodge from his throat in a way that makes him sound slightly pained. He hasn’t lied to Sam in ages and the whole thing with Ruby is just so complicated. “So, Christmas presents,” 

“Right,” Sam says, only he sounds equally off kilter and wrong. Dean makes a move back towards the kitchen, closer to Cas. He winds up leaning on the edge of the bedroom door, watching Cas cook. 

“Dunno if we’re gonna have time to do a proper gift exchange,” Dean says, even though he’s pretty sure none of them give a fuck about the Christmas presents. He can barely remember what he bought for Sam at this point, considering they started stockpiling on the gift front so long ago. He and Cas didn’t bother (in the name of the house they now probably won’t get), so even more than last year it seems like Christmas just passed him by. “Mine and Cas’ schedules don’t sink up again till after new year…but, uh, I could come round and –” 

“– Dean?” Sam interrupts, “Are you watching _porn?”_

He’d forgotten that Casa Erotica was blaring from next door (no wonder the neighbours don’t like Cas, because you know Dean used to be a perfectly respectable neighbour who didn’t have loud sex and play loud porn for inappropriate amounts of time before Cas came into the picture…much, anyway) and he can’t really find any way to explain this to Sam. 

“I… not really?” 

“Gross, Dean.” 

“I wasn’t watching it,” He can practically hear Sam’s expression, “Cas isn’t either, it’s just… on.” 

“Too add to the ambiance?” 

“Better than your classical music crap,” 

“Cas likes classical,” Sam retorts. 

“Shut up,” Dean says, but he feels better already. 

“Dean, turn off the porn. It’s making me uncomfortable.” 

“I’m passing you over to Cas while I turn it off,” Dean says, because if he takes the phone into the bedroom the backtrack of Casa Erotica’s only going to get louder. Also, because he wants to make sure Sam knows that they’re really not watching porn. 

Sam sounds fine. It’s not really often that porn helps along brotherly conversations, but… well, that conversation had the potential of being awkward and strained. Another win for Casa Erotica. 

He turns down the volume but leaves it on the same channel, just to piss Cas off when he turns the TV on later. Serves him right for insinuating that their bedroom needs extra entertainment. Pfft. 

“Food, Dean,” Cas calls, only he doesn’t move the phone away from his ear so he’s probably just completely deafened his brother, but you can’t win them all. 

“Sam wants me to tell you that he’s wishing us luck with the house and that he’s hanging up because Jess is home and he’d rather talk to her. He always says that is not what he said. He has now hung up.” 

“Thanks,” Dean grins. 

He likes the domesticity more than he’d admit to anyone, because Cas has his fair share of family issues and Dean has the rest of them, but together they fall into an easy rhythm of eating on the sofa and doing the dishes. Dean talks about hiding from Jo and Charlie all day, and about how Tessa’s back and awaiting tests (and it doesn’t look good, either), and about how the brothers who’d had the punch up in the ICU yesterday have now made up. Cas takes his turn of the how-was-your-day-dear routine by detailing out a reality TV show he’d watched part of which completely baffled him. It’s usually kind of the thing that would make him laugh, but Dean’s still reeling from the crap with Ruby, the house, Christmas and all the other rubbish. 

He can tell that Cas is too. The guy looks tired, despite the fact that he’s been in bed all day, and doesn’t have the usual refreshed look he gets after half a day to himself. His eyebrows have been knitted together into displeasure since this morning (with a short interval when they were having sex, obviously, because displeasure and sex with Dean Winchester just don’t go together). He looks pale and drawn out, hair extra messy from where he’s ran his hands through it. Dean wants to brush away everything that happened yesterday and make it all okay again, but that isn’t really an option. He settles for pulling Cas towards his chest in middle of their apartment, wrapping his arms around him and muttering something which might have been an I love you, Cas, not giving this up, Cas, we’ll work something out. 

“Dean,” Cas says, “I apologise for being pushy this morning.” 

“Like it when you’re pushy,” Dean says, waggling his eyebrows because that the sort of immature dick he is. Cas frowns and takes the opportunity to push him over to the sofa, which he probably should have expected, and then he’s laid out on the sofa and Cas is half on top of him (total hypocrite, as ever since Dean pulled something in his shoulder Cas has been nagging him about the fact that Dean’s not supposed to do stupid things or be thrown onto sofas, but whatever). Cas pauses for a moment to curl a hand round the back of his neck and then kiss him, before pulling away to fix him with one of his glares. 

“S’okay that you’re mad, Cas.” 

Technically, Dean supposes that this constitutes as cuddling on the sofa and talking about their feelings, but they’ve both had a shitty few weeks and he feels better with Cas half curled around him so he doesn’t care too much. 

“I’m not really mad at you Dean,” Cas says, “Not about the situation with Ruby. I’m mad at your family.” 

“My family?” 

“Mostly your father, but also Sam.” 

“My Dad’s dead, Cas, you kinda missed the boat there.” 

“His mistakes still have consequences.” 

“You’re also at the back of a pretty long queue, so good luck with that.” 

Cas’ hand closes around his shoulder before Dean can move, holding him hostage on the sofa. 

“I understand that. I also understand that you’d prefer me to be angry at you rather than your family, but…” 

“Us has got nothing to do with them,” Dean says, except it’s not true. All of Dean’s issues sprung up from the stuff with Sam and his Dad, and it’s not like he can really take responsibility for the Ruby situation… but it’s his fault that those issues are brought in and fester, not theirs. 

“You remain angry at both my mother and my father, Dean,” Cas reasons, which is unfair given he’s completely right. 

“They chucked you out,” Dean grumbles, “okay, fine. So you hate my family and you decided to redirect that by… what, bringing up emasculation and compromises and the fact that I like women?” 

“I am not allowed to be angry at Sam.” 

“No,” Dean says, hotly, “Ruby isn’t his fault. Ruby manipulated him, Cas, she’s a scheming little bitch –” 

“– I doubt she forced the needle into his arm,” Cas says, “I don’t want you to hate me, Dean.” 

“I’m never gonna hate you,” Dean says, “I don’t like what you’re saying, but I… Cas, I get it. But I gotta blame Ruby because Sam’s my brother. And when I start thinking about all the stuff he said and did I…” 

“I know,” Cas says, “I am _frustrated_ at the circumstances.” 

“Not the only one, Cas,” 

“And I took it out on your unnecessarily,” Cas says, “when I should have been giving you space.” 

“Because of some dumb decision I made, we can’t get our house, Cas. Should’ve made me grovel.” 

“You had no choice,” Cas says, firmly, pressing their lips together again. 

“I don’t want frigging space,” Dean says, the arm around Cas pulling him in closer. It’s the complete truth, too. He’d wanted out of the apartment when they were arguing and debating compromises earlier, but if he’d had his way Dean would have stayed in bed all day, too. They’d have watched crap television all wrapped up in each other and not talking about anything important at all. 

It’s actually more productive, too; Dean’s spent all day running over the reasons why he can’t budge and not do the fifty fifty thing, but the second he’d seen Cas storming out of their bedroom he realised he couldn’t give this up. He could push through the finance thing if that’s what Cas really wanted. It’s worth it. 

“I want the house, Cas,” The admission is painful and quiet. 

“Me too,” Cas says, curling down onto his chest, conversation over. He pulls the remote control out from somewhere under Dean’s ass (and he’s pretty sure that most of Cas’ digging around to get it was just a cover up) and switches it on. Apparently, the last time the TV was on they were watching Dr Sexy. 

“Yes,” Dean breathes, “Comfort TV, Cas.” 

Cas shakes his head with pursed lips and puts it on the next episode, anyway. 

Dean’s chest hurts. There’s so many things he’d like to say but doesn’t know how to put in words, but he’s so damn happy it’s unnatural. Not right now, necessarily, because the outside world is tugging at the back of his brain and reminding him that he has responsibility and debt again… but he can feel this contentment down to his bones. He doesn’t know how to form the right sentence to explain to Cas how much he needs him and how much his whole damn life has changed since Cas started yelling at him in the hospital corridors. 

Instead, Dean presses a kiss to the back of the guy’s neck and snuggles down to watch Dr Sexy. 

Then there’s a key in the lock and suddenly Sam is stood in the doorway, blinking down at them like they’re the cutest thing in the whole world. 

“Your brother also wanted me to tell you he was going to drop round our Christmas presents after dinner.” 

“Thanks for passing on the message,” Dean snorts, gently pushing Cas off him in order to get to his brother, “What are you, Santa?” 

“Yeah, happy Christmas to you too, Dean.” 

“I thought we’d finished that for another year,” Cas says, from the couch. 

“Dude hates Christmas,” Dean supplies, “Which means that all of this crap is actually from me, which is probably for the best…” Dean continues, dragging out the bag labelled _‘Samantha and Jess’_ from under the coffee table. “Sorry about dragging you to the hospital, Sammy.” 

“No, thank you for not keeping it from me,” Sam says, blinking with far too much emotion for Dean’s taste. And he speaks as a guy who’d just been caught cuddling on the sofa. 

“You kind of crashed the party, Sam,” Dean sighs, “I hadn’t exactly sent out your invite yet.” 

“But you would have,” 

“Yeah,” Dean breathes. 

“So, tell me about the house,” Sam says, all eager. 

“I supposed you’re staying for a beer, then,” Dean says, “Cas, beer?” 

Cas nods his assent, Sam grins like he hadn’t just totally crashed their evening (and shit is Dean glad to see him… Sam not talking to him is crappy all round) and Dean pauses Dr Sexy before it gets to the good bit with the hot nurse and the cancer patient. 

“We’re not sure if we’ll get it yet,” Dean says, “but it’s about five minutes from your place. Two bed, double garage. Awesome kitchen, Sam.” 

“Is it the money?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Dean says. Cas curls a hand around his arm and squeezes. 

“We’re nearly there,” Cas says, which is total fucking lie after yesterday, but then he supposes that Cas is meaning is renegotiation about a fifty fifty deal is nearly there, arrogant dick. 

Sam asks them about the neighbourhood, how long they’ve been looking, house prices and, to Dean’s horror, good local schools (he chokes on his beer and Cas laughs at him). He asks them about moving in together and whether Cas can put up with Dean’s messiness (Cas is worse, whether he denies it or not), and about the nightshifts and Christmas and everything else they haven’t talked about for weeks. 

They talk through three beers (although Sam only has one because he’s driving) and it’s only when Sam is leaving looking slightly smug that Dean realises he and Cas had more or less fallen into a more vertical position of where they’d just started; Dean with an arm over Cas’ shoulders, with Cas leaning back into his chest. 

“Happy first date anniversary,” Dean mutters into Cas’ neck halfway through the fourth episode of Dr Sexy. The lack of response is enough for Dean to realise that Cas is asleep, so thankfully didn’t hear that sappy-as-fuck comment. “I’m putting this in the top ten Boxing Days.” 

Cas remains stubbornly asleep. 

Dean’s super comfortable, but Cas gets a crick in his neck whenever they fall asleep in the sofa. He whines about it like a bitch and wanders around the apartment looking miserable, hand rubbing perpetual circles into the back of neck like the least subtle hint for a neck massage of all time. Until Dean takes pity on him, course. Dean rolls his eyes towards the ceiling and scoops Cas up, carrying his lazy ass back to bed. 

He’s definitely lost weight recently. Probably all the Christmas related stress and the long hours, but Dean doesn’t like it much. They both put some weight on around the time they moved in together and Dean extrapolated it into physical evidence of their domestic-bliss, and he’d have liked it to have stuck around. 

The second Dean has pulled off his shirt and tucked the covers over both of them, Cas rolls into his space, breathing loudly, and starts dribbling on his shoulder. Dean grapples for his hand knowing that, even if they wake up like this, Cas won’t bring it up and mock him for it. 

So yeah, Dean is pretty much the luckiest guy on the planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all had a slightly better Christmas than these guys did. Personally, I celebrated by spending most of the day in bed with a migraine and then accidentally walking in on my father naked. 
> 
> Next chapter is the new years chappie, so will be up before then :)


	4. Chapter 4

Charlie’s working the not-that-early-but-still-morning morning shift on New Year’s Day, so that when Dean invited her along to Ellen’s New Year’s party she offered to give him and Cas a lift home. Tomorrow is their first coordinated full day off since Thanksgiving and Dean is a hundred percent planning to get wasted at the New Year’s party and then have hot drunk anniversary sex. 

Then tomorrow they’re going to hit home depot and start looking for furniture and crap for when they have a house… which might not happen as soon as they’d like, but is definitely going to have happened by this time next year. 

(If Sam asked, he’d leave out the bit about home depot). 

He’d woken Cas up at six AM to tell him about his great plan. Cas had thrown a lot of expletives in his direction, told him he didn’t care about Dean’s New Year’s resolutions at this time in the morning and that, also, reminded him that his mother was visiting on New Year’s Day, which was why they’d booked the day off in the first place. As if Dean could forget that unpleasant titbit of information. 

Cas’ sleepy, rumpled expression had kept Dean grinning the whole day, even when their breaks didn’t line up and he spent his lunch and dinner breaks with Tessa, who’s test results had been shitty and wanted some company. 

However, there’s this very real possibility that he might have over-shot the level of drunk he was aiming for. Cas isn’t here yet which Dean knows means it’s not even eleven PM but, otherwise, his concept of time had been shot to hell with the last shot. 

It seems trying to compete against Sam, Jess then Jo in turn might have been a bit of a mistake. Actually, he’s pretty sure that accepting the challenging look in Jo’s eyes was his biggest mistake, because Jo has proven on multiple occasions that she can drink him under the table with an embarrassing amount of ease. And that’s without her current advantage that he just totally beat Jess and Sam’s asses, so already had a good six shots (maybe more? He’s not really sure about that one?) under his belt before they’d even started. 

“Your boyfriend’s arrived, Dean,” Jo says, sitting opposite and pouring out another shot that he _definitely_ can’t do, because damn. Still, if he doesn’t move from this seat he’s pretty sure no one’s gonna notice how hammered he is, so that’s his current plan. Stay sitting. 

“Caaass,” Dean calls, “Casttieell,” 

“Oh God,” Jo mutters, eyeing him carefully. 

“Jo broke me,” Dean grins, happily, as Cas walks up to their table. Cas’ eyes really are _very_ very blue, which he’s always found very interesting. “God damn woman.” 

“You gonna save your boyfriend’s face?” Jo asks Cas, refilling the rest of the shot glasses with a raised eyebrow. 

Cas screws his face up slightly, but takes all six one after the other, even the three that Dean’s pretty sure Jo was supposed to take herself. He turns the last empty shot glass over with a decisive click, before facing Jo. 

“Damn,” 

“That’s my man!” Dean says and then he may or may not have slapped the guy’s ass, but in his defence he is _really_ really drunk. He grabs a handful of trench coat and pulls Cas down to chair level. “How were the last hours of work without me?” 

“Three patients died in the past hour,” Cas says, expression sour. There’s not really much you can say to that… because it happens. People die every day, but that doesn’t make it less shitty. Dean kisses him instead. Cas tastes of the lingering shots, and Dean chases the last of the taste with his tongue even though he’s pretty sure it’s a tab inappropriate with his whole family sort of there. 

Especially as Dean sort of has a policy of not doing that sort of thing around anyone, because he doesn’t like the idea of anyone staring or getting offended or making a point about it. It’s not a big deal, but it’s just sort of easier. 

Except not when Cas has just watched three patients die, and Dean is this drunk (which always makes him ever so slightly touchy feely), and it’s New Year’s Eve and, anyway, he _likes_ making out with Cas. 

“Have we ever seen Dean this drunk?” Jess asks, from somewhere slightly further away than Cas (and is therefore beyond the scope of Dean’s ability to give a fuck). 

“Love you,” Dean says, because he does and he doesn’t say it enough. Most of the time he sort of starts off with the intention of getting there, but gets lost on the way to I love you and winds up saying something like _never change and I need you and I’d rather have you._ It’s easier after the tequila and he likes the way if falls off the tongue. 

“Definitely never this drunk,” Jo says, “Cool it, Romeo.” 

“Cas used to be jealous of you, Joanna,” Dean grins. He wants to pull Cas onto his lap and have him close close close but the problem with them being grown ass men is that that almost never works, so he has to settle with folding their fingers together in a way that he’s really hoping the others can’t see, “Which is hilarious. Hey, Jess did I ever tell you about the Sammy lucky charms story? Or there one where Jo stole my clothes and that time I had to explain to Sam what a bra was?” 

Bobby snorts. 

“It ain’t story time, Dean.” 

“Should be,” Dean says, not letting go of Cas. 

“Do you need some water, Dean?” 

“Yes,” Dean says, because he may be drunk but at least he’s self-aware about it. He drags himself out of the chair which, woah okay it’s more difficult than previously anticipated, and follows Cas into the kitchen. Mostly, because he’s not sure whether Cas is awake enough to remember that they have a drunk sex date, and because it’s very important that Cas knows about that plan. “So Ellen bought us a coffee machine for Christmas,” Dean says, only slightly more indirectly thanks to the Tequila, “for the new house. And a pie dish. Feel like we just got gay married, Cas.” 

“You said you were going to wait until I was there to open the presents,” Cas says, pouring him some water and raising his eyebrows at him. Dean shrugs because neither of them really believed that was going to happen and takes his water. He drinks it then pulls Cas into a hug because Cas is great and warm and there. 

“You should be as drunk as me,” Dean says, because it’s a valid point. “Haaappy New year, Cas.” 

“Not for another thirty minutes,” Cas says, and pours Dean another glass of water. 

“Cas,” Dean says, “M’sorry bout Christmas.” 

“I know,” 

“No,” Dean says, “About helping Charlie. Was stupid, man and you were right.” Cas frowns at him slightly, because Dean rarely apologises to Cas about the arguments they have at work, and even more rarely admits that Castiel was right. Their general policy is one to agree to disagree, because if they fought every last disagreement to the death they’d have killed their whole relationship before it even started. Dean’s blaming this on the alcohol. “S’all right when it’s just my own future I’m fucking up,” 

“I disagree.” 

“Yeah, but,” Dean says, waving this away and nearly hitting Cas in the face in the process, “If I got fired. Or sued. Or…. Or whatever. We’d be up the crapper again, only that would be my fault cause I didn’t take everything seriously. Cause I broke the rules.” 

“Dean,” 

“Here me out, Cas,” Dean says, closing a hand over his arm. It’s much too serious a conversation for New Years’ Eve, but he’s only really able to conduct the conversation because of all the shots; otherwise he’d just sit on it like he always does. Except, he’s been thinking about it in the few quiet moments he’s had between shifts and trying to sort all the crap they need to sort before the new year (and they still haven’t come to a proper agreement about the house stroke money situation, but they’re getting there)… and it’s probably the first time since the beginning that he’s thought of their relationship as kinda fragile. 

For a little while he thought Cas wasn’t going to forgive him for Ruby, and it was a fucking awful feeling. 

And, had they pissed off the wrong person on Christmas Day, there might have been the same outcome. Dean jobless or getting sued and them not able to get the house, but balancing even more tentatively on the guise of ‘doing the right thing’, and being a hundred percent Dean’s fault. Bailing out drug addicts was one thing, but was it worth gambling their future on guaranteeing a couple of patients Christmas visits? 

Hell, Dean doesn’t even know. The whole time they’ve been having the same damn argument he’s never really thought about what Cas was asking from him, now more than ever, to take their _future seriously_. Charlie has a massive distrust for authority figures, rules and enough transferable talent that she could switch career paths if she screwed the pooch. Dean’s not exactly dumb, but it’s a little late in the game to start gaining more skills. He supposes he could always go back to fixing cars, but he _likes_ nursing. 

And Charlie's still twenty something and single, whilst Dean has commitments to think about. 

“It’s one thing putting Sam first,” Dean says, and the words would probably sound harsh to anyone else but then Cas knows that’s the deal, has always known that, and wouldn’t expect anything less. “But a bunch of frigging strangers?” 

“Dean, that’s your job,” Cas says, “It’s _my_ job. Every twelve hour shift is putting ‘frigging strangers’ first.” 

“So now you’re defending me?” 

“No, you were reckless and frustrating,” Cas says, frowning, “There are _lines_ Dean. I am not asking you to never cross one again. I’m asking you to weigh up the consequences before you do so. Christmas spirit is not worth losing your job over.” 

“And some things are?” 

“Yes,” Cas agrees, which is pretty revolutionary coming from Cas’ lips and a stark improvement from last year. “You’ve regularly proved to me that you’re right to bend the rules, Dean,” 

“System is whack,” Dean says, because it’s true. It’s bullshit having to refuse patients who don’t have the cash or the insurance treatment that might change their lives, and there’s a whole load of bullshit patient confidentiality rules that means fiancés and friends are left out of the loop, and a whole load of other rules that just really fucking suck, especially when you’re the one forced to implement then. It's also a complete travesty that trying to do the right thing means you're opening yourself wide up for a law suit, but then Dean learnt an age ago that humanity pretty much sucks most of the time. 

“Yes,” Cas agrees, smiling slightly. 

“So we’re good?” Dean asks, smiling slightly sloppily because of the alcohol, as Cas fixes his blue stare on him. It’s a shot-fuelled conversation but it’s one they probably should have had a long time, because apparently they converge on a lot of stuff at this point. Dean’s just more reckless about it. 

“You guys uh… decent in here?” Jess asks, pushing the door of the kitchen open slowly. 

“No, we’re screwing in Ellen’s kitchen,” Dean bites back, rolling his eyes. 

“Drink your water, Dean,” Cas says, smiling. 

“Is he good, Cas?” Sam asks, looking nervous all of a sudden. Dean’s frowning between them, feeling some of the drunkenness fading slightly because there’s something not right with Sam, and that defies alcohol. Sam should be looking all happy and loved up… and, also, his whole damn family has followed them into the kitchen like this is some kind of planned event. 

“He’s fine.” 

“What’s going on?” Dean asks, glancing between Bobby and Ellen. Gabriel is clogging up the corner of the room like he always does, and Charlie is chatting to Jo. Probably conspiring against him. 

“Dean,” Sam says, and he’s doing the thing with his eyes that means nothing good for his heart strings, “Dean, you’ve been paying for my mistakes since you were eight.” 

Oh, no. 

He does not like where this is going. 

Everyone is looking at him. 

“Not drunk enough for this, Sam,” Dean says, a warning, as he takes another sip of water. 

“I… we know what you did for Ruby.” 

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean says, which probably would have been a lot more convincing if he hadn’t had all that Tequila. He hates his whole damn family. What right do they have to get him drunk and then make him talk about his feelings? 

Bobby snorts. 

“Come on,” Ellen says, “We ain’t dumb, kid. And your man didn’t exactly help your cause.” 

“Cas is shit at lying,” Dean says, glancing over at him affectionately, “Frigging useless.” 

Oh, shit. He just admitted it. 

“We want to help,” Sam says. 

“No,” 

“When I was eight, you sold your birthday presents so I could have new sneakers,” Sam says, face drawn out and lips twisting into the expression of misery that Dean’s never been able to deal with, “You started working at fifteen. Dean… you put me through college and I stole from you and you… I ran away and I broke into your flat. And then you paid to put me through rehab, and my debts, and you’ve never once let me help you out. You paid for Ruby’s rehab too, even though you hated her and she ran out because… because you thought it would help me and, Dean, you deserve so much better.” 

“I thought we agreed not to talk about this shit,” Dean snaps. “Cas,” Dean says, grappling around for some support in this room. Cas is smiling slightly, though. Obviously, because Cas is kind of abstractly mad at Sam and, also, he thinks Dean needs to hear about this shit. “Traitor.” 

“We clubbed together,” Jess says, gently. 

No, no, no, no. 

“Dean,” Cas says, anchoring him to the spot before he can run out the room. “Hear them out.” 

“Ruby ain’t your responsibility, Dean,” Bobby gripes. 

“S’not yours, either,” Dean says, slamming his water down on the side and glaring at everyone because, yeah, his family sucks. “You got lives.” 

“So have you,” Sam says, gesturing at Cas. 

“This your idea?” Dean asks Cas. 

“No,” Cas says, before anyone else can rush to his defence. “I told them it wasn’t necessary, Dean.” 

“I need to do this,” Sam says, blinking at him, “I’ll pay everyone back, Dean, I promise. I can’t have you selling yourself short… again, for me. So, uh, we have a cheque to cover most of Ruby’s health care costs.” 

Dean glares at Charlie this time. He hadn’t even told Cas the exact figures. She doesn’t even have the decency to look sheepish about it, just shrugging her shoulders and smiling at him. 

“I’m not touching it,” Dean grumbles, “the hell you get that kind of money?” 

“Sold our Christmas presents,” Sam says. Dean stares at him feeling oddly shell-shocked. “Well, not yours, actually. It was great thanks, Dean. And then we just all put in a couple of hundred each out of our savings and…” 

“You cancelled Christmas?” Dean asks, dumbfounded, “after all the shit you’ve given me, you cancelled frigging Christmas?” 

They were sort of halfway through it when Dean ruined the whole thing with dragging them into the hospital (if indirectly) in regards to the Ruby thing, but… well. Still. 

“This seemed more important,” Jess says. 

“It ain’t much split eleven ways,” Bobby says, “So save us the melodrama and take the damn cheque, Dean.” 

Eleven? He can’t exactly think of eleven people who’d have been willing to contribute (and he’s not a frigging charity case either, although he guesses Ruby sort of is), but by the feigned look of innocence on Cas’ face, Cas was definitely in on the thing. Frigging idiot. 

(And by the way, it is still a lot split eleven ways…) 

“I… fine,” Dean says, “Fuck.” 

“Really?” Sam asks, beaming. 

“I need another drink, stat.” Dean says, gut twisting, “And I’m not promising I’ll cash the damn thing in but...” 

“Thank you,” Sam says and, oh shit, the guys crying like the pubescent girl Dean’s known he’s always been. He suddenly has a pair of gigantor arms trying to suffocate him, then Charlie piles on, and Gabriel because he’s an idiot like that, and suddenly he’s been attacked by a frigging group hug. 

When eventually everyone quits crowding up his space, Cas appears out of nowhere with whiskey. 

“New year’s resolution,” Dean mutters, “Try and accept help off others.” 

“You don’t have to cash it in,” Cas says, “Although I think it would help your brother with his guilt.” 

Anyone else, he’d think they were being selfish wanting Dean to take his family’s money rather than their own, but Cas isn’t really like that. He’d happily have handed over half his bank account of Dean hadn’t been so dead set against it. 

“We’ll see,” Dean says, jaw tight. He doesn’t really know what he’s going to do with the god damn cheque, but it’s an option. He wants to be mad at Cas and Charlie and Sam and the lot of them, but it’s difficult when they all look so frigging happy. Also, he’s exhausted. He’s been working damn hard for years and… 

“Good things do happen, Dean.” 

Castiel still hasn’t shrugged off that trench coat of his and is facing him down in the kitchen, blue eyes boring under his skin, whilst he pours himself a triple measure of whiskey. Cas, who wants to buy a house with him and throws about their future like it’s guaranteed. Cas, who watches Dr Sexy and saves people’s lives and can’t even tie a tie properly. Cas, who doesn’t mind Dean’s residual issues or the fact that Dean’s stubbornness might mean they don’t get the house of their dreams (much, anyway). 

“I know,” Dean says, looking straight back at him. Cas’ expression softens in a way that crosses the moment over into sappy territory, so Dean snatches up the whiskey Cas poured for himself and tips it down his throat to derail their moment. 

“Five minutes till the New Year!” Sam calls from the main room. 

“At this rate you won’t make it to midnight,” Cas says, pouring himself another whiskey with an amused expression, “Let alone to our hot anniversary sex.” 

Cas says it like he’s quoting Dean’s words right back at him, and it makes Drunk-Dean want to do something dumb like run his thumb across Cas’ cheek bone and demand that he stays with him forever. He doesn’t, though. If he’s drunk enough to take a cheque from Sam he’s probably drunk enough to accidentally poke Cas’ eye out. 

“Oh, you have nothing to be worried about there, big guy.” 

* 

Dean Winchester is still reeling over the fact that Charlie told him to ‘quit giggling’ during the ride home, before insisting on waiting until they’d managed to get into their apartment because she didn’t trust their abilities of key usage. Dean is a manly man nurse who does not giggle, and any suggestion to the contrary is straight up blasphemy. 

“Don’t frigging giggle,” 

“I know, Dean,” Cas says, reaching out for his shoulder. The whole thing makes Dean unbalance and stumble a little sideways in the direction of the sofa, which hadn’t really been his intended destination. “You have a very manly laugh.” 

Dean curls a hand around Cas’ hip, distracted by the jut of bone there. He has a mad desire to lick the spot, but that’s weird and there’s a lot of clothing blocking the path of his tongue. 

“Damn straight,” Dean says, and Cas raises his eyebrows, and that’s hilarious to send them both giggling again. He’s tempted to say fuck it and go for the sofa, but there’s Cas and his frigging neck to think about. “Bed, Cas,” 

Except then they’re making out and Dean’s trying to rid Cas of his shirt, and when did buttons get so complicated anyway? 

His head is swimming and Cas tastes of Gabe’s special brew, which is half awesome and half awful. Like Gabe, actually… and also, he doesn’t want to think about Gabe when Cas is half steering the drunken stumbling to the direction of the bedroom. 

Dean yanks Cas’ shirt off over his head, because it’s easier than those damn buttons. And then there’s _skin skin skin_ and he’s running his lips over Cas’ collar bones a little sloppily, and Cas is louder than normal (which is what Dean likes most about drunk sex). 

Cas pushes him to the bed and he falls gracelessly. And it hurts. 

“Shit Cas, shoulder.” 

“Your bad shoulder?” 

“Yes,” Dean says, impatiently. He can feel the pain beyond the roll of whiskey around his brain, which isn’t a good thing. Cas is reaching out to feel for the damage, fingers expert but slightly impaired by all that alcohol. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Cas when he’s this drunk, it’s just that he doesn’t care about his shoulder. He cares about getting naked. “Play doctor later, Cas.” 

“You’re not supposed to –” 

“ – then you’re on top, Doc,” Dean interjects, grabbing a handful of Cas’ hips with his good arm and bringing their lips back to meet each other. They half miss before they get there, but hey. “More naked, Cas, come on.” 

Cas is giving him a look like Dean acts like a petulant toddler when he’s drunk, which is true, but sighs and loses the trousers anyway. 

Dean’s in the process of (or at least trying to) wrap his legs around Cas to bring the guys hips closer to his, but his legs aren’t cooperating as intended, and Cas goes completely still. 

“I think I’m going to be sick,” 

“Told you not to have any of Gabe’s special brew,” Dean says, which was true. He had told Cas that. After drinking several glasses himself. 

“Dean,” 

“Can it wait?” 

“No,” Cas says, peeling himself of Dean’s skin and sitting up gingerly. 

“Better be frigging quick,” Dean says, except it slurs out and the words bleed together in a mess of sound. “Brush your teeth,” 

Cas would usually send him a look at that point, but the guy’s moving gingerly towards the bathroom. Fuck, he loves Cas. 

“Can’t believe s’only been a year,” Dean says, staring up the ceiling. He’s like pretty much naked and turned on (and also drunk), but it’s okay because his awesome boyfriend is going to finish throwing up any minute and then come back. And Cas is warm and awesome. “S’only been a year, Caasss,” 

Cas responds by throwing up next door. 

“Cas rhymes with ass,” Dean says, “Come back and get in my ass, Cass,” 

Cas is still throwing up. 

“Y’know even when you’re throwing up,” Dean says, “I wanna fuck you.” 

He’s about to say something about how he’s the epitome of romantic and shit, but he gets side tracked detailing out the immense fucking they’re going to be doing (when Cas has finished chucking his guts up), and then he shuts his eyes because it’s easier to get a better visual. He gets to the bit where Cas has got his dick in his mouth when he realises he’s stopped talking out loud, and he’s not entirely sure at which point he starts dreaming. 

It’s a good dream, though. 

* 

Dean wakes up alone and immediately regrets it. 

His head is pounding, his stomach is churning, light hurts and also, yeah, he’s definitely going to be sick. He makes a mad dash to the bathroom, getting there just in time to empty what feels like half a litre of whiskey into the toilet. His shoulder throbs painfully, but at least it’s not as bad as it would have been had they actually got round to the hot anniversary sex. 

Jesus, he hasn’t felt this hungover since his thirtieth birthday. 

He needs coffee and some kind of painkillers but that involves moving and that just isn’t possible. Also, last thing he remembered he was naked and now he’s in sweat pants, which means that Cas must have half-dressed him before disappearing to wherever he is right now. The kitchen, maybe? He needs Cas here, stat, to give him that flat look and tell him his hangover is his own fault, but bring him some a-grade painkillers anyway. 

The jingle of keys in the front door is impossibly loud. 

“Dean?” Cas calls from the doorway. 

“Bathroom,” Dean calls back, and the effort of talking is enough that he throws up all over again. Cas appears in the doorway of the bathroom. He looks nicer than he has a right to when Dean is this hungover. Apparently, today he’s taken a diversion back to his old wardrobe of clothes that ring a little too formal and a little too nice (at least compared to Dean’s usual t-shirts). Seems like recently they’ve spend their whole time either in work clothes or boxers and he’d forgotten what Cas looked like in his casual (ish) clothes. “Cas,” Dean croaks, “you bought me Starbucks?” 

“Yes,” Cas affirms, handing him the coffee. 

“Fuck, I could marry you,” Dean says and then considers the possibility that he might still be drunk (is it possible to be this hungover and still drunk?), “Whenever that’s legal,” Dean continues, facing down the toilet, “Is it? I haven’t seen the news since like September.” 

“Not yet,” Cas says. 

Dean takes a sip of his Starbucks. 

“This coffee is awesome,” Dean mutters, “S’get married. You can buy me coffee. It’ll be awesome.” 

Cas is staring at him looking slightly slack jawed. 

Dean promptly throws up again. 

“You shouldn’t have had any of Gabriel’s special brew,” Cas says, because he’s a smug bastard like that, then steps out the bathroom to leave Dean to his misery. His stomach turns over again, but he’s pretty sure the only things left to bring up are his vital organs. 

Urgh. 

Cas returns again (briefly) with painkillers and water. 

“You’re awesome, Cas,” Dean says, loud enough that Cas can hear him from the kitchen, “As soon as I’m done having liver failure, I’m gonna screw you into next week.” It probably isn’t his sexiest attempt at propositioning Cas because, yeah, he’s throwing up again. “I’m gonna f – ” 

“ – Dean,” Cas interrupts, in the doorway again, “my mother is here.” 

He would have thought his hangover would be too all encompassing to leave room for embarrassment, but no. Dean presses his forehead against the toilet basin and groans. How had he forgotten about that? Explains Cas’ nice clothes, why he’d dressed Dean and why he’s left the house at a time that’s clearly too early, especially since Cas has gotta be hungover too. 

“Morning Mrs Milton,” Dean calls out, pulling himself to his feet and facing down his boyfriend, “Cas, did I just half drunkenly like propose and proposition you whilst your Mom was next door?” 

“I don’t know Dean,” Cas says, “Did you?” 

Well, there’s permission right there to pretend that never happened. 

“Uh,” Dean says, “ask me in a couple of hours. I’m going back to bed.” 

“No, Dean,” Cas says, hand stopping his progress back to unconscious, “We’re going out for breakfast with my Mother. Then my mother wishes to look round the house. And then we are going to home depot.” Dean can feel his stomach churning at the thought of all of those things. “But first,” Cas says, “You’re erecting the pull out bed.” 

“Quit using the word erecting in conversations,” Dean complains, stepping into Cas’ chest and wrapping his arms around him, taking a breath, “Your Mom hates me.” 

“Well,” Cas says, lips twisting into a smile, “this is an excellent opportunity to make a good impression.” 

Dean snorts, but twenty minutes later (in which Cas nags him about his shoulder and gets the decent painkillers out) he’s trying to ignore his headache as he struggles with the pull out bed. The damn thing was obviously designed just to fuck with him, because every time he thinks he’s got it something goes wrong and he has to start all over again. They’d had this debacle last time one of Cas’ brother’s visited, where Cas had been staring intently at the instructions and going on and on about how he didn’t understand the diagram for step thirty-two. Dean had snapped at him because, seriously, thirty-two steps for ‘erecting’ a pull out bed? And then he’d screwed up the instructions up and chucked them at Cas’ head and yelled _I’m a mechanic, Cas._

Cas wordlessly brings him another cup of coffee, making small talk with Naomi Milton about one of Castiel’s many brothers. Cas is different with his family (which is part of the reason why Dean doesn’t like any of them) and this reserved and slightly stilted Cas just reminds him of the early days of their relationship, after Dean had messed up that one time and they’d half avoided each other for a few weeks. 

“Are you having difficulties, Dean?” Naomi asks, turning her gaze in his direction as something that’s probably to do with step thirty two collapses on top of his hand. In an effort to not swear in front of Cas’ hyper-religious mother (given he’s already thrown up everywhere, brought up gay sex and gay marriage), he winds up sucking in a deep breath and humming Metallica. 

“Dean used to be a mechanic,” Cas says mildly, the little shit. 

* 

Naomi is poking holes in the house exactly as Dean would have expected, but he’s also pretty sure Cas tuned her out the second they crossed over the threshold. Although Cas had apparently had to ring up the realtor at a stupid time this morning in an attempt to organise another viewing (on Naomi’s orders), Dean’s actually kind of glad that they’re getting to step round the rooms again. 

He can see himself here and it’s reminding him about what’s important in all of this. 

“Have you had someone look into the guttering?” Naomi asks, not waiting for a reply before she stalks into the next room and starts going on about damp. 

“When it’s legal, we’re not having a damn service,” Dean says, “Courtroom and out.” Cas turns his gaze on him like Dean isn’t talking about something stupidly important over here, nodding as if he agrees with some comment Dean made about the weather. “If you want a party, we’re having it in someone’s back yard.” 

“That seems reasonable,” Cas says. 

“You want a ring?” Cas looks pensive in a way that means yes, but that he doesn’t want to say it. Well, as they might not ever be able to do the thing (stupid laws), he figures a ring might kind of a nice gesture. “I’ve got my mom’s wedding ring. Might fit you.” 

“I’d prefer to keep my name.” Cas says, giving Dean a look which screams thanks without saying it, largely because Cas knows Dean doesn’t want to hear it. He’s not throwing that kind of gesture around to have a ‘you don’t have to do that, Dean’ thing thrown back in his face. 

“Same,” Dean says, “Saves paperwork.” 

“Is that everything?” 

“Pretty much,” Dean says, “So that’s that sorted.” 

“Later,” Cas says, “We’re going to have combined anniversary and engagement sex.” 

“When’s your Mom leaving?” 

“Tomorrow,” Cas says, “You’re driving her to the airport before work. I’m working five till three.” 

Cas’ subtle way of dropping that into conversation isn’t missed. He’s pretty sure Cas is trying to move past the bit where he has to spend a thirty minute drive sitting in silence while Cas’ Mom judges every single thing he does… and, well, it’s worked. He’ll whine about it later. 

“I’ll pencil it in at four,” Dean grins, “Hot engagement sex with Dr Milton.” 

“You’re at work until nine,” Cas counters, before moving forward to catch up with his mother “by which time I plan to be asleep.” 

“What’s a guy got to do to get laid around here?” Dean calls after him, which was probably too loud because it makes Naomi stop criticising their future home to turn round and glare at him. Whoops. 

“You’re the one that fell asleep, Dean.” 

Dean’s half amused and half mollified when Cas steps forward and talks to his mother as if he’s been listening to her the whole time, instead of discussing their… well, engagement, he supposes. Huh. 

He pulls out his phone for something to block out Naomi’s talking and drags his gaze down the list of new messages. Most of them are just the standard happy-new-years texts and then this text from Sam that starts off emotional and sappy before it degenerates into a string of letters attached to each other. Clearly, Sam was pretty drunk last night too. 

He also has another text from Sam apologising for said text and asking whether Dean is alive. Cas is talking to Naomi about whether or not they’ll have to repaint. Naomi has been pretty much ignoring him since breakfast, so Dean feels zero guilt about ignoring his future mother in law (Jesus Christ) in order to reply to Sam. 

_The fuck is in Gabe’s special brew, Sam? Drunkenly sort of proposed and hit on Cas whilst I was throwing up in front of his Mom. Think liver is organising a mutiny._

He’s pretty sure Sam is still in a snit with him about only finding out about the moving-in thing at the same time, or after, everyone else, even if he hasn’t mentioned it amongst the rest of the shit storm they’ve been dealing with. 

Sam texts back five minutes later with _hahaha Dean, you idiot. Play nice, she already hates you!!_ Dean rolls his eyes and slips his phone back into his pocket, waiting for Sam’s hungover brain to catch up. He does and sends him some growingly aggravated text messages over the course of the next fifteen minutes, which provides enough amusement to stop him from pushing Naomi into the cellar and pretending it was an accident. 

_Wait Dean what???_

 _You PROPOSED??_

 _

DEAN!?

_

“Cellars are never particularly useful.” 

“Good for hiding the bodies,” Dean comments pointedly. Cas sends him a look and Dean winks because, shit, they’re going to do this for forever. He makes a note to tell Cas to make the story sound a little better when he tells his Mom their engaged (although she probably already heard, because Dean is a really smooth guy like that), so that Naomi stops thinking that Dean is a useless waste of space who’s slowly dragging Cas towards his deplorable ways or whatever. 

Actually, he’d quite like to talk Cas into telling the story completely different to everyone, but he doesn’t think he’ll swing that. Charlie, at least, will find it endearingly anti-climactic. It’s at least something good to remember about this whole awful festive period for. 

“New year’s resolution for you, Cas,” Dean says, “quit folding the dirty laundry so it looks neater in the corner of the room.” 

“Stop watching so much Dr sexy,” Cas suggests. 

“Sleep less,” 

“Drink less,” 

“More morning sex,” Dean grins, Cas’ mother be damned. 

“Quit nightshifts,” 

“Lighten up at work,” 

“Stop taking unnecessary risks,” Cas says. 

“Quit pushing me out when you’re upset,” Dean says, because it’s one of the most frustrating parts about Cas and one of their most frequent arguments (other than the classic ‘stop breaking hospital rules, Dean, you’ll be fired’ which has been their go to since day one). 

“Stop purposefully irritating me when you’ve had a bad day.” Cas counters, raising his eyebrows at him. 

“Don’t be all passive aggressive angry at Sam.” 

“Be nice to my mother.” 

“Touché,” Dean grins, brushing up against Cas’ side on purpose because he’d sort of aware that Cas is going to keep folding up the dirty laundry (why? It might look tidier when it’s all folded in a corner, but it just means Dean figures it’s clean and he actually has some clothes left, right until he’s trying to get dressed) and Dean is going to keep annoying Cas at work. Probably, Cas will spend his days off falling asleep and waking up to Casa Erotica. Most likely, Dean will drink too much and Cas will buy him coffee but still talk extra loudly and make him aware that it’s his own damn fault. Neither of them really mind, though, so it’s okay. 

Cas closes his hand over Dean’s bad shoulder in a way that makes Dean feel’s he’s chasing away some of the pain with his fingertips. 

Dean texts Sam a smiley face, because it’s both apt and enigmatic enough that it will piss Sam off further, which is always a worthy goal. 

Happy New Year, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in next Christmas for a missing ex-addict, a slightly upset pregnant woman and several arguments about Castiel's mother (definitely did not mean to write an even more accidental threequel - oh well).


End file.
